Always on Your Side
by InvisiblePrincess2002
Summary: AU. The Four Musketeers' first school year together at Eastland is over and Mrs. Garrett and the gang are on summer vacation. But their big vacation comes to an abrupt end when Jo's mother actually tries to murder her and her life suddenly hangs in the balance. Can Mrs. Garrett help her find healing after such a devastating turn of events?
1. The Devoted Mother

**Note to readers:** Let's get the obvious out of the way. This story is based on the NBC television show _The Facts of Life_ , which as far as I know, is the property of Embassy Television, Columbia Pictures Television, and Sony Pictures Television. **No infringement is intended.**

Now, there's a few other things I'd like to say to everybody first, before we begin. First, thank you to everyone who decided to stop by, and thanks to everyone for reading. Second, if anybody decides to leave a review, please be kind because my self-confidence is through the floor, LOL. Also, you all should know that this story is going to be very dark and dramatic. Even though _Facts_ is a sit-com, it also had the guts to deal with hard-hitting issues, and this is going to be a hard-hitting story, so be prepared. Thank you all for your time. :)

 **Chapter 1: The Devoted Mother**

Rose Polniaczeck was a devoted mother. That was what everyone in her apartment building, church, and neighborhood in the Bronx believed. That was also what her only child, her daughter Jo, had believed all her life. Even _she_ had successfully fooled herself into believing that over the years as well. And to be perfectly honest, it was actually quite understandable that everyone felt that way. Rose worked long and hard, sometimes holding down two jobs at once, in order to make ends meet and provide for her daughter. She'd had to work hard as a cocktail waitress even when she was still married to Jo's father Charlie, but ever since they'd divorced and he'd gotten sent to prison years ago, it had been even harder for her to raise Jo as a single parent. The loving, hardworking, tireless, devoted mother. That was the only picture of herself she'd ever shown to the rest of the world. It was the only picture of Rose that other people were able to see all Jo's life because none of them ever dug deeply enough to see what ugliness was _really_ lurking way deep down in Rose's psyche, not even Rose, herself. However, almost six months ago, Rose's life drastically changed in ways she never could have seen coming, and those unforeseen changes served as a catalyst for bringing that ugliness, that pure _evil_ , even, to the surface.

In the beginning, it seemed like the classic Cinderella story that was well on its way to coming true. Rose actually managed to get a job serving cocktails at some kind of high society function in a millionaire's mansion months ago, and the night she worked at the function, she met the millionaire, Mr. Ross Black, and the two struck up a conversation and instantly hit it off with each other. The rest, as they say, was history…sort of. He started calling Rose often, and before they knew it, they were constantly dating and seeing each other. Rose fell for him hard and fast, and he seemed to be falling for her, too. So when he suddenly broke things off with her two and a half months ago, for many reasons, Rose was absolutely crushed and devastated.

Rose had made no secret of the fact to either her ex-husband or to her daughter through the years that she was incredibly unhappy with her lot in life as a cocktail waitress in the Bronx. It had always been Rose's dream to earn enough money to get a college education and land some kind of well-paying, successful career and move into a better neighborhood. She'd always had aspirations of making a better life for herself. However, Charlie had moved into town during Rose's senior year of high school, and even though he was several years older than she was, she was convinced at the time that it was true love, and she started dating him. And barely a month after she graduated from high school, she learned that she was pregnant. Before Rose knew it, she was standing next to Charlie in church saying "I do" in a shotgun wedding, and all her previous plans and dreams for her life were basically flushed down the toilet. Rose hadn't exactly been thrilled at the prospect of becoming a mother and giving up her plans to go to college, and that was putting it mildly. She did develop kinder feelings towards Jo when she was born and she eventually resigned herself to her fate. It was a long, bitter road for Rose, but in the end, she learned to live with the fact that she couldn't go to college and get out of their neighborhood and that she had to sacrifice her dreams in order to be a mother to Jo.

And according to all outward appearances, it seemed to everyone around her that Rose Polniaczeck was always Mother of the Year. Rose resented – _deeply_ resented – the fact that all of her dreams for her life had been destroyed because of _one_ stupid mistake she and Charlie made. However, in the beginning when she first held Jo in her arms, she made up her mind that she _would_ make a better life for her daughter than the kind of life she'd had. She'd grown up dirt poor with an alcoholic dad who'd always been so strung out on booze that he didn't even care if his own family went hungry. Rose may have felt a lot of resentment over the loss of her dreams, but at first, she knew she couldn't take out that resentment on an innocent child. She made up her mind right from the start that she _would_ live up to her responsibilities and that no matter what, her child would _never_ go hungry for a single moment. And no matter how hard Rose had to work, she _did_ always make sure of that. She worked very, very hard for many years to make sure she and her daughter were taken care of. Even when things got tougher than ever after Charlie suddenly left them both one day and Rose was on her own with a child to look after, she continued to stick with it.

But when Jo started acting out and really getting into trouble when she was fifteen, Rose's parental endurance truly began to wear out. At least when Jo was a little child, she was sweet, and she showed Rose the love and the respect that she was due for all her hard work. But there was _no way_ Rose was going to continue making all these sacrifices for a person who didn't even have the _decency_ to be grateful for it. She had sacrificed _all_ her hopes and dreams for herself in order to marry Charlie and bring Jo into the world, and if Jo actually had the _audacity_ to give her a lot of trouble after all she'd done, Rose was _not_ going to stand for it. Not in the least.

Of course Rose could hardly just quit her waitressing jobs and stop working altogether. Then they'd _both_ starve. But then one day, just for the heck of it, she started doing research on different boarding schools in New York, and what she learned about the Eastland School for Girls in Peekskill really sparked her interest. They offered a lot of help and resources for families of students in need of financial aid, and if Rose could get the financial aid she needed to help pay for Jo's tuition, room, and board there, she knew she could earn the rest, and she did eventually decide that _that_ was what she was going to do. Naturally, _she told herself_ she was doing it in order to get Jo out of their gang-infested, dangerous neighborhood and provide a better education for her, but way deep down, it was actually because she was fed up. If Jo couldn't show her the gratitude and respect she deserved by staying out of trouble, Rose was _not_ going to put up with her. She would continue to work very hard and provide for her basic needs, naturally, but if Jo was going to be an ungrateful teenage brat, then Rose was going to get her out of her hair, and she was going to _enjoy_ what little bit of life she still _could_ enjoy _without_ having to deal with a rebellious teenager in the house.

But amazingly enough, it ended up being the perfect decision for both of them, although it certainly didn't _appear_ to be in the beginning. Jo fought and rebelled against it all at first. To say the least, she was _not_ happy about the idea of leaving behind the only home she'd ever known to go to some boarding school in some rinky-dink little town like Peekskill. She rebelled further and got into even _more_ trouble when she first arrived there. After getting into an argument with another student, Blair Warner, about which one of them was better at attracting guys, she convinced Blair to help her steal the school van so that they could drive to the nearest bar and see which one of them "a real man" would go for. They ended up taking two other students along with them, Natalie Green and Tootie Ramsey, and after accidentally getting the van wrecked and getting into further trouble with an undercover cop at the bar, Jo and the other three girls were thrown in jail and expelled from Eastland. Fortunately for them, the school dietician, Mrs. Edna Garrett, stepped in and convinced the headmaster, Mr. Harris, to allow them to stay. Thanks to Mrs. Garrett's intervention, the headmaster agreed to pull the necessary strings with the judge to get them released from jail, although they were still put on probation, and in order for them to be allowed to stay in school, Mrs. Garrett had to promise to accept full responsibility for them, which she did. They also had to work for Mrs. Garrett in the kitchen and cafeteria until the damage they did to the van was paid off, and rather than living in the school dorm, they had to move into the room across the hall from Mrs. Garrett so she could keep her eye on them. Obviously, Jo had gotten off to a rough start at Eastland, getting herself and three other girls into serious trouble, even getting them all a criminal record. However, Jo quickly became good friends with the humorous writer Natalie, the exceedingly wealthy and _hopelessly_ snobbish but kindhearted Blair, and the youngest of the foursome, the fun-loving but ever-gossiping Tootie. And Mrs. Garrett was always, _always_ there for them whenever they had a problem and needed someone to talk to. In hardly any time at all, the five of them really did become a family, and that family provided Jo with the kind of support and structure a girl her age really needed. And even though Rose Polniaczeck did an excellent job of portraying the picture of the devoted mother who was willing to work so hard to get her daughter out of a bad neighborhood and provide a better education for her – and even though she actually fooled _herself_ into believing that as well – way deep down in her heart of hearts, she _really_ saw it as being relieved of a grossly unfair burden. With Jo gone, she could actually have a _life_ again, _without_ the headaches of a strong-willed, rebellious teenager to put up with. Now, Eastland and Mrs. Garrett could deal with Jo and she wouldn't have to worry anymore.

With Jo out of her hair, Rose was free once again to actually have a life of her own when she wasn't busy working. Soon after Jo went away to boarding school, Rose started dating a man she really liked, and he even moved in with her for a short time, which of course was something she never could have allowed to happen with Jo around. Then not long after they broke up and he moved out, Rose met and fell in love with Ross. For the next couple of weeks after he told her that he was breaking things off with her, she tried and tried, _constantly_ , to get in touch with him and find out the whole story. And in the end, he finally broke down and told her the truth: it was Jo. He told her point blank that he absolutely _hated_ children and wanted nothing to do with them. He even told her that had it not been for the fact that she already had a daughter, he probably would have already asked her to marry him. When Rose assured him that Jo was away at Eastland most of the year and that they wouldn't even see her all that often, Ross told her that that wasn't enough. He wanted nothing – _absolutely nothing at all, ever_ – to do with kids, not for even _one_ day out of the entire year. He told her that that was why he broke things off with her when he did, because he wasn't _about_ to start getting serious with a woman who had a child.

For the next two months after that crushing discussion with him, as Rose continued working her rear end off in restaurants and bars, all those years of buried anger and resentment she'd been feeling deep down in her heart towards Jo came to the surface. She had told herself when Jo was first born that she wouldn't hold any resentment in her heart against her, and she had tried not to. She _had_ worked very hard and had tried to be a good mother, but in the back of her mind, those feelings of resentment towards her daughter had always been there. And now, they were stronger than ever. _Jo's very existence alone_ had cost Rose every dream for herself she'd ever had. Providing for Jo's needs _continued_ to cost her _so much_ time and energy. And now, once again, she was losing _yet another dream_ , just because of the _mere existence_ of her daughter. Marriage to Ross was the ticket to getting out of her neighborhood; to no longer having to work herself to death every day in a miserable job she despised; to actually having money and a life; to _all_ of her dreams coming true. The thought of losing all of that because of Jo continuously filled her with more and more _and more_ anger, bitterness, and resentment, until finally, Rose Polniaczeck simply couldn't take it anymore. She had already lost _so much_ because of Jo. She could not, _she would not_ lose anything else because of her. Losing Ross was her breaking point. She _wasn't about_ to allow Jo to steal away another dream from her.

When Jo first returned home for the summer after the end of her first school year at Eastland, she honestly had no clue about the kind of raging inferno of emotions that was going on inside her mother. She had been so hurt and upset in the beginning when she learned that her mother's new boyfriend had moved into their apartment with her mother that she actually threatened to run off and elope with her navy boyfriend, Eddie Brennan – and nearly made good on that threat. But ever since then, while Rose had told her about breaking up with her boyfriend and him moving out, she had told Jo nothing of her whirlwind romance with the millionaire, Ross Black. And obviously, there was no way Jo could have really imagined or anticipated the kind of burning anger and resentment her own mother felt towards her. Before all the years of resentment Rose had felt against Jo finally came to the surface, she had in fact behaved like a caring mother over the years. She had done things with Jo and gone places with her whenever it had been possible for her to do so, especially when Jo was smaller. Jo and Rose had definitely had their share of fights, arguments, and problems over the course of her childhood, but she had truly believed her mother loved her and was devoted to her. There was no way in the world Jo could have _possibly_ seen it coming.

On that first night of summer when Jo was at home with Rose eating dinner, Rose talked to her as if it were business as usual. Her demeanor gave away nothing. To Jo, it was simply an ordinary supper with her mother. They chatted about school, about her friends, about Mrs. Garrett, about Eddie, and about all the academic achievements Jo had made at Eastland. Just as she'd been in their local school, she was also now a straight-A student at Eastland and had won their Best New Student Award, despite all the earlier trouble she'd gotten into. Rose talked about how proud she was of her, and when it came to playing the role of the devoted mother, she really did give an Oscar-worthy performance during their supper together that evening.

There had been only one tiny hint of a clue that something was off. Jo was rather surprised by how sweet her food and her soda tasted that evening.

"Hey Ma, doesn't everything taste a little too sweet to you?"

"No, dear. Everything tastes fine to me," Rose said innocently as she took a big spoonful of mashed potatoes. After she ate it, she asked Jo, "Why?"

Jo was a classic tomboy and she always had been. Jo was a brilliant girl and she understood the world of the classroom very well, and beyond the classroom, she was a mechanic. She understood cars and engines and motorcycles. And while she did help Mrs. Garrett out in the kitchen and cafeteria, one thing she was _not_ was a natural cook. Mrs. Garrett generally handled most of the actual cooking herself, and just let Jo and the girls clean the kitchen and cafeteria and do things like stirring and chopping up the food. Blair, Natalie, and Tootie were a little better at cooking than Jo was, but not much. And since cooking was _not_ one of Jo's gifts and she knew it, the last thing she wanted to do was complain to her mother about the food. Things did taste unusually sweet to her that evening, but if her mother made some kind of mistake in the kitchen and ended up putting too much sugar in everything somehow, she wasn't going to make a big deal about it and hurt her feelings.

Jo shook her head then and replied, "Never mind. Maybe it's just me." A moment later, she kept right on eating, and the conversation between her and her mother continued as usual.

Things certainly didn't _stay_ that way, however. About half an hour after Jo and Rose finished eating, Jo started experiencing the strangest symptoms. Her balance was off, she was starting to slur her words, and more than anything else, to Jo, it simply felt as though she was _drunk_. That made absolutely no sense, though, because Jo hadn't had any alcohol whatsoever. When Jo told her mother about it, she just brushed it off and said that she was probably just coming down with something, and she told her to go to her room and lie down, and so she did. She convinced herself that her mother was right; that it probably was just a bug or virus of some kind she'd caught, and she was sure she'd feel better in the morning.

However, Jo awakened several times through the night and vomited, and each time, it was harder and harder for her to make it to the bathroom, and she just barely made it to the toilet in time. And the last time she vomited through the night, in fact, she was so weak and disoriented that she couldn't make it to the bathroom by herself, so she called out for her mother to help her. She called and called and called for Rose, but Rose never came, and she ended up vomiting on her bedroom floor before practically passing out in her bed.

As far as any of the neighbors knew all day that day, Rose was away at work, and none of them had any idea where Jo was but they were all certain that she was out and about, hanging out with friends or something. And as far as Mrs. Garrett, Blair, Natalie, and Tootie knew, the school year had ended and Jo was back home with her mother, enjoying her summer vacation. None of them had _any_ clue at all what was _really_ happening to Jo, all alone in her mother's apartment that day.

Starting at about six o'clock that morning, Jo's heart really began pounding and racing, and she couldn't help but breathe much faster than normal. She was only semi-conscious, but even in that state, she could tell that this _wasn't_ just a simple bug. Something was wrong with her. Something was very, _very_ wrong. She called out for her mother time and time and time again, and when nobody answered and nobody came to her room, she knew that meant that for whatever reason, she was on her own in their apartment, and she definitely knew that that was _not_ a good thing. She knew she was in trouble, _serious trouble,_ and she knew she needed help and she knew she needed it _soon_. She also knew she was in _no_ condition to hop on her motorcycle and go to the nearest hospital by herself. Heck, she wasn't even in any condition to get out of bed by herself!

However, even though in her nearly-unconscious state, Jo was still lucid enough to figure it out that something was badly wrong with her and that she needed help, she was also terribly confused and disoriented. She knew she needed help, but she was too confused to be able to figure out what to _do_ about it. She had a phone on the nightstand beside her bed and she knew she could call someone, but she couldn't figure out _who_ to call.

Finally, she decided she would call the one person she'd come to depend on the most over the past nine months: Mrs. Garrett. However, when she groggily dialed a number and a voice answered on the other end after many rings, it was the _last_ person's voice on earth she'd expected to hear. Of all people, it was actually Blair who answered the phone. Snobbish, clueless, spoiled, airheaded Blair. The _least_ helpful person of all!

"Hello?" she practically barked into the phone. To say the least, she did _not_ appreciate someone calling her at her mother's beach house in the Bahamas and waking her up at six-thirty in the morning. _Especially_ not when she was on her summer vacation!

"M-Mrs….M-Mrs. Garrett," Jo's weak voice whispered on the other end.

"Who is this?" Blair asked in an annoyed tone of voice.

Before Jo could answer, yet another wave of nausea came over her and once again, she vomited, this time in her bed.

"Hello?" Blair's voice called on the other end of the line as Jo dropped the receiver. "Hello? Who is this? Hello?"

It was at that point that Jo completely slipped out of consciousness.


	2. Fragile

**Note to readers:** I just want to say thank you all so much for all your support! Thanks to everyone who has faved, followed, or reviewed _Always on Your Side_. I appreciate the support and kind reviews very much. I also want to let you know that I am going to continue this story. It just may take a little while for me to update it because I'm a little busy at the moment. I'm also working on another story in another fandom here, but I will keep updating. I just need you guys to be a little patient with me. ;) Anyway, I really hope you guys enjoy chapter 2, and thanks again. :)

 **Chapter 2: Fragile**

For the next two days, Rose Polniaczeck simply drove around throughout New York in the old, broken-down, fifteen-year-old car she owned, practically in a stupor. Way, way deep down inside her, there _was_ a tiny part of her that realized what an evil thing she'd done to her daughter. However, the other ninety-nine percent of her drowned out that one percent of her soul that still had any kind of conscience. She couldn't allow that tiny part of her to have any control of her thoughts. Yes, part of her was frightened, _terrified_ even, at the thought of what she had done, but as the shock of what she had done to her own child finally began to wear off after a couple of days, she started to get her bearings once again, and she pulled herself together, remembering what had to be done.

Rose hadn't expected to feel like this after poisoning her daughter and leaving her behind in her apartment to die. She had expected to feel free and liberated. She had expected to feel lighter after the unfair burden that her daughter had always been to her was finally lifted from her shoulders. She hadn't expected to feel the kind of shock and fear that overtook her now. Now, all she could think was, what if her hopes, what if her plans actually fell through and Ross didn't save her? What if he didn't protect her like she had been so certain he would in the beginning when she first decided to do this? What if he didn't understand that she'd done it all for him, for their relationship, because she couldn't lose him? What if he actually turned her in to the police and she spent the rest of her life in prison? What would become of her?

Meanwhile, as Rose prepared to go see Ross and explain the situation to him, Jo was still in their apartment in the Bronx, lying lifeless and unconscious on her bed. Blair hadn't been able to understand a word Jo had said when, in her confusion, she'd called her by mistake a couple of days ago, trying to get in touch with Mrs. Garrett, and sadly, Blair had quickly forgotten the phone call and gone on about her business. It wasn't until over two days later that Jo was _finally_ discovered by a concerned neighbor. After not having seen Rose or Jo for so long, she had really begun to get concerned, and so she finally went to the landlord and had him open up their apartment with his pass key. Naturally, when she and the landlord found Jo lying in her room unconscious in a pool of her own vomit, just barely breathing, they immediately called for an ambulance.

As one would expect, Mrs. Garrett was the very first person to arrive at the hospital in the Bronx when all of Jo's Eastland family learned the news several hours later. The police had been trying in vain to reach both of Jo's parents all afternoon before they eventually got in touch with Mrs. Garrett in the course of their investigation. Given that it was a teenager from a poor neighborhood and from a broken home, the moment the hospital told the cops that it was antifreeze poisoning, they immediately assumed that it was a suicide attempt, but they still had to investigate to make sure, of course, because they knew there was still a chance that this could have been done to her by someone. And if this was a case of attempted murder, they had to find out who did it.

Mrs. Garrett arrived at the hospital at a little after six that evening, and when she saw Jo lying comatose in a hospital bed in the ICU, hooked up to monitors and IVs and a hemodialysis machine with an oxygen mask over her nose and mouth, to put it mildly, she was in shock. Just a few short days ago, Jo had been her usual strong, healthy, tough, no-nonsense, lively self. She'd been talking with her and the girls about how she was looking forward to going home for the summer and spending some time with her mother and her old friends in the Bronx. Now all of the sudden, here she was in the ICU, sick, weak, helpless, _fragile_ , and fighting for her very _life._ Jo Polniaczeck had been many things in her life, but until now, _fragile_ had never been one of them. How, _how_ could this happen?

As Mrs. Garrett stood beside Jo's hospital bed in her ICU room that evening, a short brunette nurse came in to check her vital signs.

"What a waste," she said with a sigh as she shook her head.

"What do you mean?" Mrs. Garrett asked.

"I mean this dumb, crazy kid, taking her life like this. Teenagers. They pull the dumbest stunts."

Edna Garrett was a registered nurse herself and she'd seen plenty of doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals like her in hospitals before – people with about as much tenderness, compassion, and tact as a school of piranhas, with _no_ business being in the medical profession whatsoever.

"Now you just hold on one minute," Edna told her with a pointed finger. " _Jo is not_ a 'dumb, crazy kid.' She is a kind, sensitive, loving, brilliant, _beautiful_ young lady. And she may be young, but her youth _does not_ give you the right to speak so disrespectfully about her. You are a nurse and she is one of your patients, and as a nurse, you know perfectly well that it is your job to always remain respectful and professional in how you treat your patients.

"And she did _not_ try to commit suicide. She may come from a poor neighborhood and her parents may be divorced. She may have issues in her life, but I know this girl and I know she would _never_ do something like this to herself."

Mrs. Garrett's little speech to the nurse, thankfully, was enough to make her _and_ her bad attitude _shut up_. She said nothing for the next minute or so as she finished taking Jo's vitals, and then she walked out of the room in a huff.

According to the rules of the hospital, an ICU patient's family and friends could only visit for ten minutes at certain hours of the day, but fortunately, this hospital was very good about relaxing the rules, especially whenever a patient and her loved ones were very close to each other. When the people in this hospital learned the whole story of how Mrs. Garrett had taken Jo and three other girls under her wing at the Eastland School, they had no problem in bending the rules for her and giving her more time with Jo, especially considering the fact that neither of Jo's parents were there yet.

At long last, though, the police _finally_ managed to reach Charlie, who had gone off on a fishing trip for the weekend with his new boss. And when he arrived at the hospital at about eight that evening and saw Jo in the state she was in, it absolutely killed him. When he walked into Jo's ICU room and took a good look at his daughter, he covered his mouth with his hand and choked back a sob.

Mrs. Garrett walked up to him then and kindly put her hand on his shoulder. "Mr. Polniaczeck," she said softly.

Charlie turned towards Mrs. Garrett in that moment and said, "Oh, uh…hello, Mrs. Garrett."

Before they could say anything else, Jo's doctor, Dr. John Thompson, a tall, slim, bald man with glasses, came into the room.

"Hello, Dr. Thompson," said Mrs. Garrett. They'd already met a little earlier.

"Good evening, Mrs. Garrett," he responded.

"Dr. Thompson, this is Mr. Polniaczeck, Jo's father," she explained, and then the doctor reached out and shook hands with Charlie.

"Hello, doctor," Charlie told him.

"Hello, Mr. Polniaczeck."

"So, doctor, can you tell me just what it is exactly that's going on with my daughter?"

"Well, sir, we've been able to determine from all of our tests that your daughter has somehow ingested a large amount of antifreeze. She's suffering from ethylene glycol poisoning."

"That's what the cops told me when they reached me at my boss's cabin a little while ago."

"Tragically, we see this kind of thing all the time, especially in young kids these days. They get desperate. They feel they're at the end of their rope, so they attempt suicide in any number of ways."

"Now hold it, doc. I cannot believe that my daughter would try to commit suicide."

"Neither can I," Mrs. Garrett agreed. "Doctor, I realize that you see a lot of suicides, even teen suicides, in your profession, but I'm telling you, there is _no way_ our Jo would ever do something like that. She's strong and intelligent and she knows she's got a lot to live for and her whole life in front of her. She's not a quitter. She would _never_ just give up on her life and throw it away."

"Exactly," Charlie agreed. "Doctor, you don't know Jo like we do."

"But anyway, whether or not this was a suicide attempt is beside the point right now," said Mrs. Garrett. "Just tell us, Dr. Thompson, what this will mean for Jo's overall state of health."

"Well, we're giving her an antidote, and we've also put her on hemodialysis to try to filter as much of the poison out of her body as we can. However, I must tell you that the prognosis is not good. She ingested a great deal of poison, and even though we don't know for certain how long she was alone in her mother's apartment before she was found, we believe a significant amount of time passed before she started receiving help. The poison has sent her into congestive heart failure, which is why she's on oxygen at the moment. Her heart and lungs have been damaged by something called calcium oxalate crystals which formed in her body as a result of the poison, so they need all the help they can get. Those same crystals have also formed in her kidneys and have badly damaged them. As a matter of fact, at the moment, her kidneys have completely shut down, which is another reason why she has to be on dialysis. The hemodialysis machine," he said as he pointed to it, "is doing the work of filtering your daughter's blood because her kidneys aren't able to right now."

"Now wait a minute," Charlie said nervously. He really was beginning to feel frightened by everything the doctor was saying. "You…you make it all sound as though Jo's at death's doorstep or something; like she's going to die. But that's not going to happen, right? Th-the dialysis and the antidote _will_ get rid of all the poison in her system and she _will_ get better. Right?"

"I'm terribly sorry, Mr. Polniaczeck, but I'm not going to sugarcoat it. With early treatment, many victims of ethylene glycol poisoning do recover successfully, but as I said, a lot of time passed before your daughter started receiving treatment, and she did ingest a great amount. Because of all the damage that has been done to key organ systems in your daughter's body, I must say that as a physician, I don't think it's likely that she'll recover. She's in very critical condition right now. It is entirely possible that your daughter…will die. I'm very sorry."

The doctor left in that moment, and after he was gone, Mrs. Garrett asked, "Mr. Polniaczeck, would you like to sit down?"

Charlie shook his head and replied, "No. No thank you, Mrs. Garrett. I…I think I'll be going now." After he told her that, he started heading towards the door.

"Mr. Polniaczeck, wait," Mrs. Garrett stopped him. "I know this is incredibly frightening and painful, but no matter how hard it is, you can't leave your daughter now. Don't you want to be by her side when she wakes up?"

"According to that doctor, she's not _going_ to wake up."

"You don't know that. Jo's your _child_ , Mr. Polniaczeck. No matter what, you cannot give up on her. You can't leave her. Not now. She needs you."

"Jo doesn't even know I'm here. She can't see or hear anything. She's unconscious."

"That's not always true. Sometimes patients who are unconscious _do_ hear it when their loved ones talk to them. Jo needs you now, Mr. Polniaczeck. She needs your support, your encouragement, your love. She needs you to hold her hand and talk to her. She needs you let her know you're here. And she needs those things from you now more than ever. You're her _father._ You _cannot_ walk away from her now."

Unfortunately, Mrs. Garrett's pleas for Charlie to stay by his daughter's side fell on deaf ears as he turned around again and continued to take in the sight of his only child, lifeless, hooked up to machines. It was more than he could take. Charlie Polniaczeck had abandoned Jo once before because of his own stupid selfish cowardice and immaturity, and he nearly abandoned her a second time when he tried to reconnect with Jo at Eastland and couldn't deal with her anger, but Mrs. Garrett had stopped him then. Now, though, not even Edna Garrett's words of wisdom were enough to make Charlie Polniaczeck stop being a selfish coward. He left Jo once before because he was weak and selfish, and sadly, despite the fact that he _knew_ that Mrs. Garrett was right, that Jo needed him now more than ever, it wasn't enough to make him work up the courage to stay.

Charlie turned to face Mrs. Garrett again, and he told her, "I'm sorry, Mrs. Garrett. I can't do it. I just can't."

He walked out the door then, which made even someone as patient as Mrs. Garrett absolutely _boil_ with anger inside.


	3. When it Rains

**Note to readers:** Just want to say thanks again for all the support! I always appreciate it! :)

 **Chapter 3: When it Rains…**

Sadly, if there was any one thing in life Charlie Polniaczeck was good at, it was feeling sorry for himself. And he felt more self-pity than ever as he sat at a bar in the Bronx, having one drink after the other. Even though it was _his child_ who was lying in an ICU room in the hospital fighting for her life after getting poisoned by _her own mother_ , the person Charlie felt sorry for the most that evening was Charlie as he continued to get drunker and drunker.

And while Charlie was off getting drunk and Rose was AWOL, it was Edna Garrett who remained sitting by Jo's bedside that night in her white, sterile ICU room, holding her hand, and silently praying for her to get better like a _real_ parent would do.

"Jo, I've talked to the girls, and they'll all be here to see you really soon," Mrs. Garrett told her. "Blair's flying in from her mother's beach house in the Bahamas tonight and she should be here in the morning, and Tootie's leaving drama camp and she should get here sometime tomorrow, too. It was a little harder to get in touch with Natalie. I'm sure you remember that she was going on that big road trip with her parents for the summer, but I managed to track her down. She and her parents had just reached Iowa when I spoke to them today, but Dr. and Mrs. Green are coming back to New York with Natalie. They should be here sometime tomorrow evening, they said. So very soon, you'll have the whole family with you," Mrs. Garrett said, trying to sound upbeat and optimistic for Jo's sake, but the instant those words came out of her mouth, they actually hit her very hard. The tragic fact of the matter was, "the whole family" _wasn't_ with Jo at all. Jo could very easily _die_ right now, and yet, her own parents had abandoned her. No one had any clue where they were.

A moment later, Mrs. Garrett decided to stop trying to pretend everything was peaches and cream and she decided to get more serious. "Jo," she said in a low, serious tone of voice, "I know if you were awake right now, you'd probably tell me not to beat around the bush with you. I know what a tough, no-nonsense kind of person you are. You like nothing but complete honesty, and you like to get to the point. It…it's one of the things I love most about you," she said in an emotional whisper.

"Well, okay," Mrs. Garrett continued. "The point of what I'm trying to tell you is, I know things look bad right now. You're a very sick girl, sweetheart, and I realize that. But no matter how bad things may look, I know what a fighter you are, and I want you to know that _now_ is the time to _fight_ , regardless of how bad things may seem. You're no quitter, Jo, and I know that, _so don't quit now._ Don't give up, Jo. You've got a lot of people who love you, who _need_ you, and I'm one of them.

"I know we've only known each other for about nine or ten months, and maybe I'm not a blood relation, but the truth of the matter is, I…I couldn't love you any more if you were my very own daughter. I've always respected the fact that you girls are somebody else's daughters and not mine, but to be perfectly honest, I really do tend to think of you, Blair, Natalie, and Tootie as the daughters I never had. I've had other members of the Eastland faculty and staff come to me with this attitude that choosing to be responsible for you girls and look after you was this unbelievably horrific sacrifice, like I was severing a limb or something. I'll admit that it's not always easy, and the five of us do have our ups and downs, but Jo, there is _nothing_ I would rather be doing with my life than what I'm doing right now. I love the family we have together so much. There's nothing on earth like it, and there's _no one_ on earth like _you_. No one has touched my heart the way you girls have. The way _you_ have. You mean more to me than I think you'll ever truly know. And I need you, Jo. I need your intelligence and your strength and your honesty. I need to see your beautiful face in my kitchen every day, laughing and talking and arguing with the girls. You're so important to me, and I miss you so much, so please, _please_ don't stay away for too long, huh? Come back to us soon."

Mrs. Garrett squeezed Jo's hand, and then she grabbed a tissue out of her purse and wiped the tears that had come to her eyes.

And Mrs. Garrett wasn't the only one who was crying in that moment, either. Rose Polniaczeck was also crying, sobbing even, but _not_ because of how sick her daughter was. She was sobbing because Ross had been shocked, appalled, and even _furious_ at Rose for what she had done. Maybe it _was_ true that kids were one of his biggest pet peeves and he strongly disliked them, but still, he would never be vicious enough or crazy enough or _stupid_ enough to try to poison someone. Immediately after Rose told Ross what she had done to her own daughter, he managed to talk her into letting him drive her to the police station so she could tell the cops what she did, promising to do whatever he could to help her, which of course, was a lie, although Rose didn't know that yet.

And that night, as Mrs. Garrett was sitting at Jo's bedside talking to her and stroking her hand, Rose Polniaczeck was sitting in a jail cell in police custody, crying tears of fear…for herself, of course, _not_ for gravely ill child. Even though Rose had believed what Ross said at first about being willing to help her, part of her had gotten the sense that he really hadn't meant it, and now as she thought about it, she became more and more scared. Now, she was really quite terrified that she had in fact made a grave error in judgment when she decided to trust Ross.

At the same time, Charlie had spent his last dime on booze at the bar that night, so he finally stumbled out to his car to make the quick drive home.

* * *

The next morning, the neighbor that had discovered Jo came by the hospital to visit her. Her name was Mrs. Goldman, and she was a rather heavyset lady in her early fifties with graying blonde hair and brown eyes with glasses. Mrs. Garrett had finally fallen asleep at two o'clock in the morning in one of the chairs next to Jo's bed, but when she heard the door open and someone walk in, she instantly woke up.

"Oh, I'm sorry," said Mrs. Goldman. "I didn't mean to disturb you."

Mrs. Garrett stood up then and said, "Oh no, that's quite alright. I need to be up anyway. I want to know everything the doctor has to say when he makes his rounds this morning and comes to see Jo."

"I'm Edith Goldman," she said as she stuck out her hand.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I'm completely forgetting my manners." Mrs. Garrett shook her hand in that moment and told her, "I'm Edna Garrett."

"So _you're_ Mrs. Garrett. Oh, I've heard all about you. You're the one who's been looking after Jo at that girls' school. What's it called again? Eastland?"

"That's right."

"Oh, I'm _so_ glad you did what you did. I'm so glad you kept that headmaster from expelling Jo. She _does_ have a knack for getting into trouble, but I think it's only because of everything she's been through. It's been really hard on her ever since her father walked out on her a few years ago."

Just the mere _mention_ of Jo's father made Mrs. Garrett's blood boil once again. "I know it has been," she said quietly.

"I think she just needed somebody like you to come along; somebody to _really_ get involved in her life; take the time to listen to her; somebody who would not give up on her. It's a shame that that somebody couldn't have been one of her parents. Oh, it's just tragic what they did to her! The poor, dear kid."

"What are you talking about?"

"Haven't you heard? Oh, it's simply unbelievable!"

"What is?"

"As it turns out, _Jo's mother_ did this to her."

" _What?!_ " Mrs. Garrett gasped in utter shock.

Mrs. Goldman nodded and said, "It's hard to believe that a mother could do something like this to her own child; I know, but it's true. My husband works down at the police station, and he actually heard Rose's confession himself yesterday. Right now, Rose Polniaczeck is sitting in a jail cell."

"I can't believe it. _I simply can't believe it_ ," Mrs. Garrett whispered, still in shock. As a mother of two sons herself, she couldn't even _begin_ to imagine doing something so cruel and so evil to her own child. It made absolutely no sense.

"And that's not all. Something happened to Charlie last night, too."

"Yes, I know," Mrs. Garrett said in an angry sigh. "He took one look at his sick daughter, packed up, and hit the road!"

"Charlie was _here_ last night?"

"Yes, he was here for a little while, and then he just up and left."

"Well after he left here, he must've gone straight to the bar."

"What do you mean?"

"He got drunk last night, and afterwards, he left the bar and got in his car to drive home."

In that moment, Mrs. Garrett really began to fear the worst. "What happened?" she asked.

"He totaled his car…and himself. He got in a terrible car crash, and my husband was told that he was killed instantly."

"Are you telling me that…that Jo's father… _is dead?_ "

Mrs. Goldman nodded then and replied, "I'm afraid so." In that next moment, she walked up to the side of Jo's bed and said, "This poor little girl. You know the old saying, right? When it rains, it pours. As if getting poisoned by her own mother wasn't bad enough. Now she's all alone in the world without any family."

"Doesn't Jo have any aunts or uncles? Grandparents?"

Mrs. Goldman shook her head and said, "All of her grandparents died years ago, and Rose is an only child and so was Charlie. They never had any siblings, so Jo doesn't have any aunts, uncles, or cousins. Poor kid. She doesn't deserve this."

"No, she doesn't," Mrs. Garrett said as she started becoming filled with anger all over again. "Oh, how, _how_ could Mr. Polniaczeck do something like this to Jo?! How could _any_ parent be so _selfish?!_ If he only would have just stayed here at his daughter's side last night _where he belonged_ , none of this would have happened!"

"I know," Mrs. Goldman agreed.

"I'm sorry. I hate to speak ill of the dead, but as a parent myself, that just _infuriates_ me! I know it's hard to see your child so ill, but one of the very _first_ lessons I learned when I became a parent was that it wasn't _about_ me; it was about _my child._ It wasn't about what _Mr. Polniaczeck_ was going through; it was and is about _helping Jo._ And now it's _Jo_ who's going to pay the ultimate price for her father's bad decisions! Because of _him_ , now, Jo won't have _any_ parents at all to help her through this when she wakes up. How could he _do_ something like this to her?"

"Sadly, old Charlie was never very good at being strong and courageous, _especially_ when times got really tough."

" _That's_ when being strong and courageous counts the most, when times get really tough."

"I know. My husband and I have four children and seven grandchildren. I can't imagine just getting up and walking out on your child when she's in this kind of condition, leaving her without any family."

" _She does_ still have a family, Mrs. Goldman. Maybe my girls and I aren't blood relations, but _we have_ become a family."

"Do you have daughters?"

"No. I have two sons, and they're both grown now. No, I was talking about the other three girls who have been working with Jo in the kitchen and cafeteria at Eastland; the other girls I'm responsible for."

"Oh, yes."

"The five of us really have become a family during this past school year. And I think it's more important than ever now that I make sure that Jo's not separated from our family when she gets out of the hospital. If you'll excuse me, Mrs. Goldman, I have to go speak to somebody about this."

"Of course. It was very nice to meet you, Mrs. Garrett."

"It was nice to meet you, too, Mrs. Goldman," Mrs. Garrett told her, and then she walked out the door, burning with anger at Jo's parents, and burning with even _more_ determination to do something about it.


	4. Gethsemane

**Note to readers:** My apologies. I should have told you this in my note in the last chapter. Someone mentioned in my reviews that Jo had an uncle, and I know about the season 3 episode where Jo goes to visit her cousin. However, I just want to state for the record that this is an Alternate Universe story, so it is not going to follow FOL canon by the letter. I stated specifically in the last chapter that Jo did not have any aunts, uncles, or cousins, and as far as this story is concerned, Jo's uncle and cousins do not exist. That makes it a whole lot simpler to just pave the way for Mrs. Garrett to be named Jo's legal guardian (which I'm sure you've all figured it out by now is where I'm going with this, lol.) And as always, thank you all so much for all the support. I appreciate it so much! :)

 **Chapter 4: Gethsemane**

There were few people on earth with more honesty and integrity than Edna Garrett, and under normal circumstances, she would never ask Blair to use her family's wealth, power, and connections in the government for her own benefit. However, these were _not_ normal circumstances. Jo was gravely ill, poisoned by her own mother who was now in jail, and her father had just _stupidly_ gotten himself killed by drinking and driving after he'd abandoned her _for the second time around._ Jo was very, _very_ sick, and without any parents, grandparents, aunts, or uncles who could take care of her, so Mrs. Garrett did the only thing she felt she _could_ do. She became Jo's foster mother. Thanks to Blair's parents' dream team of attorneys and wealth of connections in the local and state government, Mrs. Garrett was able to cut through all the red tape, and she became Jo's foster mother and legal guardian at lightning speed, which was a very good thing, too, considering that Jo really needed someone as loving and capable as Mrs. Garrett to make whatever medical decisions needed to be made on her behalf.

All of this happened within just a couple of days after Blair, Natalie, and Tootie made it back to New York. Natalie was staying at home with Dr. and Mrs. Green and coming to visit Jo at the hospital in the Bronx during the daytime, and Blair and Tootie were both staying with Mrs. Garrett at Eastland and doing the same, although Mrs. Garrett insisted on staying with Jo during the night because she didn't want her to be all alone. Blair had flown in from the Bahamas by herself while her mother was in Europe, and one of Tootie's older brothers had picked her up at drama camp and driven her to the hospital, and of course, Dr. and Mrs. Green had driven Natalie back from Iowa.

Blair was the first of the girls to arrive at the hospital, and when she saw Jo in the beginning, to put it mildly, she was absolutely _stunned_. She simply could not _believe_ that the sick, weak, unconscious girl hooked up to oxygen, IVs, and monitors was the same tough, gritty girl from the Bronx she'd really come to care about and get close to during the past school year. And when Tootie first got there and saw Jo, she absolutely cried and fell apart, and it took some time for Mrs. Garrett and Blair to help her to settle down. It was basically the same story for Natalie when she arrived the next day.

Three days after the girls made it back to New York, Mrs. Garrett, Blair, Natalie, and Tootie were all sitting together at one of the tables in the cafeteria after they'd all finished lunch that afternoon. Howard Caden, the assistant cook who had been dating Mrs. Garrett for several months now, was back at the hospital with Jo, giving Mrs. Garrett a much-needed break for a little while. Ever since the beginning of this nightmare, Mrs. Garrett had literally been living at the hospital, only coming back home long enough for a shower and a change of clothes, because she couldn't stand the thought of Jo being alone right now.

"Mrs. Garrett, are you going to adopt Jo someday?" asked Tootie.

"Well, Tootie, that's certainly a possibility," Mrs. Garrett replied. "However, I think this is something we're going to have to take one step at a time. First, we have to wait for Jo to get better. Afterwards, it'll really be up to Jo as to whether or not she wants me to remain her foster parent or…if she wants it to be something more permanent."

"Do _you_ want to be Jo's mom, Mrs. Garrett?" Natalie questioned.

"Of course I do," she said lovingly. " _I love Jo._ I love _all_ you girls. And since Jo doesn't have any parents or relatives who can take care of her anymore, I very much want to step in and be a mother, or at least a mother figure, for Jo. I love my sons more than anything in this world, but I can't deny it that I've always wanted a daughter of my own.

"That's not my decision to make, though. At least, not entirely. I would love to adopt Jo one day, but I won't force it on her. I won't adopt Jo if it's not what _she_ wants. Like I said, we'll just have to take it one step at a time, once Jo gets better."

"Mrs. Garrett…what if Jo doesn't get better?" Blair asked, daring to ask the one question that had also been on Natalie's and Tootie's minds, but that they had been too afraid to ask.

"She will, Blair. She will."

"Yeah, but…what if she doesn't?" asked Natalie. "You kept saying that Cynthia would get better, too, and you kept saying that we should think positively, and look what happened. _Cynthia died, Mrs. Garrett._ Jo could die, too."

"That won't happen, Natalie. We are _not_ going to lose Jo," Mrs. Garrett insisted.

"You know, it's funny. All throughout this last school year we've spent together, I always thought Jo was so irritating with her punkish looks and her even more punkish attitude. Now, I…I find myself missing that attitude more than ever," Blair said softly. "Now, I think I'd give just about anything to hear her drive up on her motorcycle or get in an argument with her. I've always liked kidding her about how she's always been Mr. Goodwrench around here, but the truth is, she's so much more than just a tough, Bronx barbarian grease monkey. The truth is, Jo is actually one of the smartest, most sensitive people I've ever known."

"Well, that's the beauty of Jo," Mrs. Garrett said. "There's so much more to her than meets the eye. Jo may come from a rough neighborhood and she may have a painful past, but Jo is _so much more_ than her neighborhood or her past. She picks up so much, so quickly. She's a _brilliant_ student. She's incredibly knowledgeable for someone her age. She's sensitive and caring and thoughtful. And she might have made some bad decisions every now and then, but all in all, she's very wise and mature for someone her age as well. She is… _a treasure._ "

"Mrs. Garrett, I'm really scared," said Tootie. "I don't think I've ever been this scared before in my whole life. I never will forget that day when I found Cynthia after she took all those pills. She was lying on the floor, unconscious, just barely breathing. It was terrifying. Now, I'm getting that same feeling. It's almost like going through that awful day all over again."

"I never will forget Cynthia's funeral," Natalie said sadly. "It was on a Saturday, and practically the entire Eastland student body and faculty showed up. The whole funeral was just so sad. Now, we might actually end up going to another one. I don't know if my heart can take it."

The girls really were like the daughters Edna Garrett never had, and even though Mrs. Garrett hadn't even known Jo for a whole year yet, in her heart, it really _felt_ as though it were her very own daughter back in that ICU, fighting for her life. For that reason, this whole thing was tougher on Mrs. Garrett than anyone. Truth be told, _she_ was every bit as scared, possibly even _more_ so, than her girls were. And hearing them actually discussing the possibility of Jo's funeral only scared her that much more.

Mrs. Garrett stood up then and said in a deep, serious voice, "Girls, I will not listen to that kind of talk anymore. In order for Jo to make it through this, she needs the people around her to believe in her. For Jo's sake, we've _got_ to stay positive and believe that she's going to get better, and that is _precisely_ what we are going to do! And we are _not_ going to waste any more time just sitting around here talking about worst case scenarios that aren't going to happen in the first place when we _all_ could be doing much more practical things with our time.

"Just a couple of weeks before Jo left for her summer vacation, she had a problem with her motorcycle's engine that she had to fix, and she mentioned that she accidentally misplaced a couple of the tools she had out while she was repairing it. She looked around here for days and she never found them, so Tootie, as of right now, it is your mission to find those tools."

In that moment, Tootie got up from her seat and said, "Yes, ma'am." Then she left to embark on her mission.

Then Blair stood up and said, "Hey Mrs. Garrett, I just thought of something useful Natalie and I can do."

"What's that?"

"We can go shopping for a new helmet for Jo. The day before she left here for the summer, she mentioned that she really wanted a new one. It'll be a great welcome home present for her."

Mrs. Garrett smiled and said, "That _is_ a very good idea, Blair. It's very thoughtful of you, and I'm sure Jo will appreciate it when she comes home."

"Come on, Natalie," Blair told her.

"Right," Natalie responded, and then she followed Blair out the door.

Once all the girls had left, Mrs. Garrett suddenly thought of something practical that _she_ needed to be doing as well. It wasn't until that moment that she realized that in the midst of everything, she had actually forgotten to get in touch with Jo's boyfriend Eddie. Mrs. Garrett might not have been the biggest fan of Eddie, especially after he tried to convince Jo to elope with him several months ago, but he was still her boyfriend and he _did_ have a right to know about what was happening with her.

As would be expected, Eddie was deeply worried and upset when Mrs. Garrett told him all about everything that had happened, and he promised to be there just as soon as possible. Mrs. Garrett's conversation with Eddie had been painful and draining, as had her discussion with the girls. Perhaps she really did need to take a break and try to get some rest, but it was quite impossible because the moment she closed her eyes, she saw Jo's face, and she started getting scared that the worst was going to happen to her.

So while Tootie searched for Jo's tools and Blair and Natalie shopped for a new helmet, Mrs. Garrett went into the kitchen, put on her apron, rolled up her sleeves, and started making Jo's favorite dessert, which naturally was her famous apple strudel. Mrs. Garrett practically made strudel by the truckloads that day.

Finally, that evening after Tootie had eventually found Jo's tools and Blair and Natalie had come back with what they were convinced was the perfect helmet, Mrs. Garrett returned to the hospital. She actually hadn't had supper yet and neither had Howard, so they got something at the hospital cafeteria several floors down.

"Oh, Howard, this whole thing is _such_ a nightmare!" she told him.

"I know it is, honey. I know," Howard said sympathetically.

"You know, the girls got to talking today about how scared they were that the worst might happen to Jo, and I've got to tell you, listening to them talk about the possibility of losing her _really_ tore me up. It was all I could do to hold back my tears. I almost lost it and started crying, right there in front of my girls."

"Would it _really_ be such a bad thing if your girls _did_ see you cry every once in a while?"

"Why, Howard, I can't just burst into tears in front of the girls. I'm responsible for them. It's _my_ job to be the adult, and it's _my_ job to be the strong one."

"I agree, but at the same time, it might not be such a bad thing for you to level with these girls and let them know that you're just as scared as they are right now. It might be good for them to see you when you're not always picture-perfect. It might be good to let them know that it's okay to admit that you're afraid in times like these, and that it's okay to have a good cry if you need to."

"Perhaps," Mrs. Garrett said, but it was obvious by the tone of her voice that she wasn't convinced.

Even though Howard objected to the idea since she'd already spent so many nights with Jo in the hospital as it was, she insisted a little while later that he go home, and she stayed another night at Jo's side. Howard came by again first thing the next morning, so Mrs. Garrett went back home to shower, change, and get a decent nap.

Mrs. Garrett woke up at about eleven o'clock and got dressed, and shortly after that, she started _really_ admitting how frightened she was, not to the girls, but to Jesus. And unbeknownst to her, Blair, Natalie, and Tootie had quietly slipped in, wanting to talk to her about when they'd be going back to the hospital to visit Jo.

Mrs. Garrett looked up and said, "Alright, Jesus, I think it's time the two of us had a little talk. You've always been there for me my whole life. Without You, I wouldn't be the person I am today. It's always been my faith in You that's gotten me through hard times before. There were so many times when I didn't know where mine and my sons' next meal was coming from because of all my ex-husband's gambling debts, but You always provided for us in the most unexpected ways. All my life, You always seemed to send somebody into my life with a kind word to encourage me and help me keep going, right at the moment I needed it the most. Well, I need Your help now, and this time, I don't simply need a few dollars to buy lunch or a kind word from someone. This time, I need Your help in a very big way. I need a miracle, and I need it soon. You've done so many amazing things for the human race. When You walked this earth, You performed all kinds of miracles. You fed the hungry. You gave sight to the blind. You even went to the cross to save humanity from their sins and give them eternal life. Now, I need You to do something amazing for me. I need You to make Jo well again and give her back to us."

It was in that very moment that the dam broke and all the tears of heartache, fear, and exhaustion she'd been holding back for days came pouring out of her in sobs. When she managed to catch her breath long enough to talk again, she said to the Lord, "You made me into a strong person, God. I can take an awful lot. But I can't take this. I can't take losing one of my girls. I guess You can consider this my own Gethsemane experience or something. Jesus begged to escape the crucifixion but it wasn't meant to be. I have _never_ been more scared in my entire life than I am right now, and I am _begging_ You, if it is possible for me to be able to escape losing one of my girls, _please_ let me escape it. _Please_."

Once again, Mrs. Garrett broke down into sobs, and Blair, Natalie, and Tootie walked up to her. Blair put her hand on her shoulder then and said softly, "Mrs. Garrett?"

Without a word, she turned around, and the girls just hugged her and held onto her for the longest time while she cried, and they cried with her. About ten minutes later after they'd gotten everything all cried out, Tootie observed, "You're just as scared as we are right now, aren't you, Mrs. Garrett?"

"Yes, Tootie," she replied in a deep tone. "I am. It's true. I…I'm very frightened about what's happening to Jo right now. But you know what, girls? It's okay to be frightened. It's okay to be scared, and it's okay to _admit_ you're scared. The truth is, I don't know what's going to happen to Jo. I don't know if she's going to get better or not. But because we love her, we can't ever give up on her."

"We won't, Mrs. Garrett," said Tootie.

"It's going to be alright, Mrs. Garrett," Blair said.

"Of course it is," Natalie agreed.

"I know, girls. I believe that. I really do. And girls?"

"Yes, Mrs. Garrett?" said Natalie.

"Thanks for being there."

They all smiled, and then Blair told her, "Don't mention it."

A couple of hours later, Mrs. Garrett and the girls went back to the hospital, and they ran into Dr. Thompson out in the hallway on their way to Jo's room, and oddly enough, he actually seemed… _happy_.

"Oh, Mrs. Garrett, I'm so happy to see you. We've been trying to call you, but I guess you were already on your way here."

"What is it, Dr. Thompson? Has something happened with Jo?" she asked, still fearing the worst.

"Yes. Believe it or not, I actually have some good news."

" _Good_ news?" Mrs. Garrett responded, unable to believe her ears. It had all seemed so hopeless before.

" _Yes_. Jo is no longer in congestive heart failure."

" _What?!_ " Tootie happily cried out.

" _That's great!_ " Natalie said aloud.

"And that's not all. According to all our latest tests, it seems that all the damage to her heart and lungs is gone. It's a miracle. It really is. I guess miracles do still happen in this crazy, messed up old world sometimes."

"What about her kidneys?" asked Mrs. Garrett.

"Unfortunately, there's no change in her kidneys. They're still too badly damaged to function, but that might change after she spends a couple of more months on dialysis. It is common for patients suffering from kidney damage caused by ethylene glycol poisoning to regain kidney function after being on dialysis for a while. However, Jo did ingest a large amount of poison and she did go a long time before finally receiving treatment, so I can't guarantee that her kidneys will be able to bounce back. We'll just have to wait and see. But if they don't, a person can still lead a normal life, even on dialysis. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. We need to take things one step at a time. Right now, the most important thing is, she's going to make it."

"Of course, doctor. Oh, thank you! Thank you so much!" Mrs. Garrett said so happily as tears of pure _joy_ came to her eyes, the girls hugging each other in the background.

"Well, if you ladies will excuse me, I need to see my next patient."

"Certainly, Dr. Thompson. See you later," Mrs. Garrett told him as he walked away, and then he turned around and waved goodbye. "Come on, girls," she said in that next moment. "Let's go inside."

"Right, Mrs. Garrett," Blair said, and then they all walked into Jo's room together.

About an hour later, it happened: Jo opened her eyes!

" _Jo!_ " Mrs. Garrett cried out.

"Mrs. Garrett?" she said groggily.

"Oh, Jo, you will _never_ know how good it feels to see you!" Mrs. Garrett cried out through her tears, and then she just _threw_ her arms around her and gave her the biggest, longest hug she'd ever given anyone.


	5. Auto-Pilot

**Chapter 5: Auto-Pilot**

Jo remained in the hospital for several more weeks before coming home with Mrs. Garrett. The girls continued to visit Jo frequently when she was still in the hospital, but frankly, each visit they had with her was awkward. Blair, Natalie, and Tootie all felt so bad for Jo, but they just didn't know what to say or do to help her feel better. And when Jo's boyfriend Eddie came for a visit with her, it was equally awkward as well. It was a devastating situation that Eddie just simply didn't know how to deal with.

The girls had discussed the idea of spending the rest of their summer vacation at Eastland so that they could be with Jo, but she insisted on them doing what they usually did during the summer, and she just wouldn't budge, so they reluctantly left Peekskill shortly after Jo was discharged from the hospital. Natalie resumed her road trip with her parents, and since Tootie had missed a lot of important activities at drama camp, she wasn't able to return so she ended up actually going home to spend the rest of her summer with her parents and her older brothers in Washington, D.C. And Blair, naturally, met up with her mother in Europe and spent the rest of her vacation there.

It was late July when Jo finally came home from the hospital, and classes didn't start again until September, which was a good thing for her. Having those weeks at Eastland, just herself, Mrs. Garrett, and Howard there, was quite helpful. It gave her a chance to really stop and take it easy for a while. Mrs. Garrett thought it would also be helpful to her to learn that nothing was going to be changing when the new school year started; that she was still going to live and work with the girls in the kitchen and cafeteria and attend classes at Eastland.

"That big vacation to Europe I was saving up for will simply have to wait," Mrs. Garrett kindly explained, and it was true. Mrs. Garrett had been saving up her money for a good while to go on a vacation to Europe, and she'd actually managed to save up quite a lot. Now, that money would be paying for the part of Jo's tuition, room, board, and books at Eastland that her scholarship didn't cover.

However, when Mrs. Garrett told Jo about it, she couldn't explain why, but for some reason, it filled her with dread and tied her stomach up in knots. She even pleaded with Mrs. Garrett not to do it, but she was insistent. Mrs. Garrett knew it was best for Jo to keep going to school at Eastland with the rest of her girls; that now was really the _worst_ possible time to shake up Jo's life and have her change schools. She was quite surprised by Jo's reaction, though. She almost could have sworn she'd actually seen _fear_ in Jo's eyes when she'd told her that she had enough money saved up to pay for the rest of her school tuition, room, and board at Eastland and that she wouldn't have to transfer to Peekskill High. It really didn't make any sense to Mrs. Garrett at all.

Jo's behavior when the girls came back from summer vacation in September made perfect sense to her, though. Classes were officially beginning on a Wednesday, and all the girls at Eastland were due to arrive the day before so they could take the rest of the day to unpack and get settled in. When Blair, Natalie, and Tootie first walked into the cafeteria that Tuesday afternoon and saw Jo, they instantly gave her the biggest hug.

"Jo, you don't know how good it feels to see you again!" Tootie said aloud.

"We missed you so much!" Natalie cried out.

"It's really good to see you up and around again, Jo," Blair said with a smile.

But the _last_ thing Jo felt like doing in that moment was smiling. Blair _was_ only being friendly and kind, though, as were Natalie and Tootie, so Jo forced a smile and tried to be polite. "It's good to be up and around again. Thanks, guys," she told them quietly.

"It's such a miracle, the way you just suddenly got better," Tootie commented.

Better? _Better?!_ Ha! Yeah, right! Jo loved Tootie of course, but she really had _no_ idea what she was talking about. Even though Jo had been able to come home from the hospital some time ago, she was still on dialysis. While in the hospital, she'd had to undergo a procedure to create a fistula, which joined one of her veins to one of her arteries in her left arm so that the vein would strengthen and enlarge, making it easier to insert the two needles of the dialysis machine. Mrs. Garrett always drove her to the center for kidney patients in Peekskill three times a week, on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, for her dialysis, and while Jo's doctor did expect her kidneys to eventually function again after being supported with dialysis for a while, so far they hadn't. And what was even worse was the fact that Jo didn't seem to tolerate dialysis well. Often after dialyzing, she would feel weak, lightheaded, and nauseous. When she went a fair amount of time without dialysis, though, especially after the weekends, she was equally uncomfortable because toxins would build up in her body and fluid would build up on her lungs, making it rather difficult to breathe sometimes. And as if _all that_ weren't enough, she was on _tons_ of dietary restrictions. Practically every morsel of food she ate and every drop she drank had to be measured out and carefully monitored. It was crazy.

"Thanks, Tootie," Jo said quietly, and then she just simply left Blair, Natalie, and Tootie standing there in the cafeteria.

"Where is she going?" Tootie asked, completely dumbfounded. This was _not_ like Jo at all.

"Upstairs, from the looks of it," Mrs. Garrett responded. The girls hadn't seen her, but she'd come into the cafeteria from the kitchen and had been standing behind them the entire time.

She knew things between Jo and the girls were still awkward. The girls had naïvely expected after all these weeks for Jo to be more like her usual self, but Mrs. Garrett knew that Jo was still in shock inside at everything that had happened, and that it would take a lot more time and a lot more work to truly deal with it all. And right now, she really felt that it was best to just let Jo go at her own pace and wait for Jo to come to her to start talking about everything when _she_ felt ready to do so. She wasn't going to try to pressure Jo into opening up about all the heartache her mother had caused her if she didn't feel up to it just yet. Mrs. Garrett understood perfectly well that it was, in fact, far too much to ask of Jo to expect her to start acting like the old Jo Polniaczeck they all knew and loved right now.

"She was so quiet, Mrs. Garrett," said Natalie.

"She barely said two words to us. Mrs. Garrett, she didn't even try to insult me," Blair said, stunned.

"It's like she's not even Jo anymore," Tootie complained.

"She's had a tremendous shock, girls. The parents she'd always loved and believed in turned out not to be the people she always thought they were, and on top of that, one is behind bars and the other's dead. And on top of _that_ , she's having a rough time coping with dialysis, and she's not always feeling very well. I know a little bit of time has passed and you girls were hoping Jo would be a little more like her normal self by now, but you're just going to have to be patient. It's going to take a lot of time for Jo to work through everything that's happened to her and it's not going to happen overnight."

"We understand, Mrs. Garrett. Is there anything we can do?" asked Blair.

"Just be understanding, girls. Just give her some space. Give her time. And most importantly, be there to listen if she needs someone to talk to."

"We hear you, Mrs. G.," Natalie assured her.

"Anyway, why don't you girls go upstairs and get settled in, huh?" Mrs. Garrett suggested.

"I left my bags outside," Tootie told them.

"So did I," said Natalie. "We should go get them first before we go upstairs, Tootie."

"Right," she agreed, and then they left.

"Let me guess, Blair: your wardrobe's coming later in a truck, right?" questioned Mrs. Garrett.

"Oh yes, and this time, so is my makeup. This time, my makeup fills not just one, but _two_ whole suitcases! I wasn't going to carry _two_ suitcases in here all by myself, so it's coming in the truck with my wardrobe, too."

"Now Blair, you have to remember, there's only a limited amount of space for your things. There has to be enough room in your closet for the other girls' things, too."

"I know, Mrs. Garrett. It'll be painful, but when my wardrobe and makeup arrive, I guess I'll just have to make some choices about what to include in the closet and what not to and send the truck back with the things I don't have room for." Then Blair let out her usual whimpering sound that she always made whenever she had to do something she didn't want to do.

Mrs. Garrett jokingly patted her shoulder then and said, "Oh, it's not so hard, Blair. You'll survive."

Blair responded to that with another whimper.

After the girls all went upstairs to unpack and settle in, Mrs. Garrett went up to her room – and actually found Jo lying on her bed.

The moment Mrs. Garrett walked in, Jo turned and sat up on the side of the bed and said, "Sorry, Mrs. G. I'm just not feeling that great right now and I really didn't feel like hanging around in our room with the other girls."

"No, Jo, you don't have to apologize," Mrs. Garrett told her kindly as she sat down on the side of the bed next to Jo. "It's perfectly alright. I understand your needing to have a little peace and quiet right now. And I know you're not up to talking very much."

"Don't get me wrong, Mrs. Garrett. You know I care about the girls, but they were really driving me crazy, especially Tootie. You know what she said to me?"

"What?"

"She said the way I got better in the hospital was a miracle. _I just hate it_ when people tell me that! In the first place, because of my messed up kidneys and this whole dialysis thing, I never have any energy anymore and I always feel lousy. How is _that_ 'better'? And in the second place, I went home to the Bronx at the start of my summer vacation and ate a simple supper with my mom. The next thing I know, I'm lying in a hospital bed and I'm told that I was poisoned by my own mother, my father ran out on me _again_ , got drunk and got himself killed, and my mom's in jail. That's the reality, _the nightmare_ , I wake up to. What kind of _miracle_ is that? This is no miracle, Mrs. Garrett. It's a disaster!"

Of course to Mrs. Garrett, it really had been a miracle that Jo hadn't died, but she understood that Jo was _not_ in the mood to hear that now, so she didn't say it to her. Instead, she put her hand on top of Jo's, looked into her eyes, and told her, "I know, sweetheart. This is _so_ hard and painful, and _horribly_ unfair to you. I know. I can't imagine how much you must be hurting inside right now."

"Actually, I'm _numb_ inside. I can't really _feel anything_. I know the girls wanted me to stay and talk to them about summer vacation and everything, but I just couldn't. It's like I'm on auto-pilot or something. I can't really feel or have normal conversations. It's almost like the only things I'm capable of doing every day are getting out of bed, taking a shower, getting dressed, helping you out in the cafeteria, eating, going to bed at night, going for dialysis on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and nothing else. Even simple, normal conversations with the girls are more than I can handle right now."

"Yeah, well, let me tell you something: for someone who's gone through as much as you have over the summer, being on auto-pilot and functioning every day as well as you do is _amazing_. It may not _feel_ like it, but you're doing great, Jo. You're doing _wonderfully_ well, and I am _so_ proud of you."

That was the wonderful thing about Mrs. Garrett: she always had such a knack for lifting people's spirits when they were down. And even though Jo was carrying unbelievably heavy burdens right now, Mrs. Garrett's loving words made those burdens feel a little lighter to Jo at the moment.

Jo smiled and said, "Thanks, Mrs. Garrett."

Mrs. Garrett returned the smile and kissed her cheek, and then she said, "Why don't you get into your pajamas and come back in here and take a little nap before dinner? That way, the girls can't disturb you."

"Thanks a lot, Mrs. G. I'd really appreciate that."

"It's no problem. Well, if you'll excuse me, I have to go downstairs and help Howard plan the menu for tomorrow's meals."

"Sure," Jo said as they stood up together, and then Mrs. Garrett went downstairs to talk to Howard and Jo got her pajamas out of the girls' closet. Afterwards, she came back into Mrs. Garrett's room and changed into them and slipped in under the covers.


	6. Mother in Name Only

**Note to readers:** Just want to say thanks again for all the support! I do appreciate it so much. I also want to give a shout out to **Thundercatroar** for explaining the term "guardian ad litem," which I later looked up for myself. I try to do as much research as I can about these kinds of things (and I recently read horror stories as I researched the corruption of America's foster care system). Unfortunately, so much of this stuff goes over my head, especially legal and government-related stuff, but I do try to keep things accurate, or as accurate as possible anyway. Frankly, one of the reasons I'm having Blair's family cut through all the red tape and speed everything up so much is because when it comes to any kind of legal things, I'm hopelessly dense and there's so much of it I just don't get, so rather than trying to get into the legality of it all, I just explain it away with Blair's family speeding everything up, lol. (And it's kind of necessary for the plot too, lol.) Anyhoo, thanks for all your amazing reviews 'roar, and thank you to everyone else for all your thoughtful reviews too! They always mean a lot to me. I also want to give a shout out to my buddy **zuka4one** because I know you haven't been feeling well lately, but yet you **still** read and leave reviews, even though you totally don't have to, which is **so** sweet and awesome of you! You guys are so encouraging, and I really do appreciate it! :)

 **Chapter 6: Mother in Name Only**

It was now the beginning of November, and things weren't any better for Jo. If anything, they were even worse, _a lot worse_. For one thing, Jo never regained kidney function, and the doctor told her and Mrs. Garrett some time ago that he believed Jo's kidneys would never bounce back. Most victims of ethylene glycol poisoning whose kidneys didn't function properly often regained kidney function after a certain amount of time on dialysis, but it seemed that that wasn't going to be the case with Jo. Sadly, though, that was just the tip of the iceberg.

Now, social services suddenly decided out of the blue that they were going to uproot Jo and place her in another foster home. Mrs. Garrett had been named Jo's temporary legal guardian, or guardian ad litem, when she was incapacitated and needed a guardian to make medical decisions on her behalf, but social services was still involved in Jo's case and a social worker was still making visits to see how she was doing in her environment at Eastland. And most unfortunately, the social worker on Jo's case was hopelessly incompetent in her job, and was, quite frankly, downright _stupid_. She jumped to the conclusion, after just a handful of visits through the months, that Mrs. Garrett wasn't fit to be Jo's foster mother anymore because Jo was basically still on "auto-pilot" emotionally speaking. Naturally, Jo wasn't still on "auto-pilot" because Mrs. Garrett wasn't a capable parent or guardian, but because what had happened to her was so deeply traumatizing that there was no way Jo could come to terms with it all in just a matter of months. And the fact that her kidneys were no longer functioning and that she still wasn't tolerating dialysis all that well _certainly_ didn't help, either. A lot of the time, Jo simply wasn't _well_ enough to be in any other kind of mode than that of "auto-pilot."

It certainly didn't seem right or fair, but the sad fact was, because of that ridiculous social worker's recommendation that Jo be removed from Mrs. Garrett's care, she was taken away from her family at Eastland on a chilly November morning at the drop of a hat and placed in another home. To put it mildly, Mrs. Garrett, Blair, Natalie, and Tootie were both heartbroken _and_ very, very worried. They didn't know who Jo was going to be placed with, and they were all scared to death that her new foster family was not going to give Jo the kind of time, attention, and TLC Mrs. Garrett always did.

And their fears were not unfounded. The new couple Jo was placed with, the Browns, had three other teenage foster children already that they rarely paid any attention to. Their other foster children, two boys and one girl, were quite wild, often running around with the wrong crowd, staying out until the wee hours of the morning doing only God knew what, and were almost never home. Mr. Brown was a truck driver, so he didn't spend that much time at home himself because of his job, and although Mrs. Brown was supposed to be a homemaker, she barely spent any time at home either. She was often at one of her lovers' houses instead. To say the very least, it was truly mind-boggling that they'd ended up with the three foster children they had before Jo, and even _more_ mind-boggling that they were the ones who were Jo's foster parents now and not Mrs. Garrett, but that was the sad reality of the corruption of the foster care system in America.

Not surprisingly, Jo was in the Browns' house all to herself the first week she was with them. And because she'd been taken away from Eastland so suddenly, she hadn't been able to take her bike with her, so she had no way to get to the dialysis center. Jo knew she could call Mrs. Garrett, but the tragic fact was, she was in so much agony inside that now, she really didn't care what happened with her health, especially if she couldn't be with Mrs. Garrett and the girls anymore. At least they'd been a true family she could cling to through all of this, but now, she didn't even have them anymore, so she didn't care whether she ever went for her dialysis again or not.

It had taken a great deal of work and arm-twisting on Mrs. Garrett's part, but eventually, she managed to track down the name, number, and address of Jo's new foster parents. When the dialysis center called Mrs. Garrett and told her that Jo had missed her dialysis twice, she'd really been gung-ho on finding Jo and getting in touch with her. She'd been trying to find out how to get in touch with Jo before the center called her, of course, but they had an unlisted number, so it had taken her a good bit of time to track their contact information down. She called the Browns' home several times, but nobody answered. The truth of the matter was, Jo had just been lying in bed the past several days. She was itchy, swollen, a bit confused and disoriented, and it was getting harder for her to breathe. And when she'd heard the phone ring, she simply hadn't felt like getting up and answering it, so she didn't.

Mercifully for Jo, Edna Garrett was an _exponentially_ persistent woman, _especially_ when the health and well-being of one of her girls was at stake. When Jo didn't answer the phone, she drove to the Browns' house and knocked on the door and rang the doorbell over and over again. Jo had been asleep, but the sound of Mrs. Garrett's knocking, doorbell-ringing, and voice calling out to her woke her up. Jo loved Mrs. Garrett, but she just was _not_ in the mood to talk to her right now, or _anyone_ , so she simply pulled the covers over her head and decided to wait for Mrs. Garrett to give up and go away.

But of course, that was the _last_ thing Mrs. Garrett would ever do, especially in a situation like this. When all the fuss she was making at the front door didn't work, she went around the back and knocked relentlessly on the back door. And when _that_ didn't work, she started pounding on all the bedroom windows until _finally_ , she came to Jo's bedroom window. The moment Jo heard Mrs. Garrett banging on her bedroom window, she let out a frustrated sigh, knowing that now, no matter what, she _had_ to see her and talk to her, and right now, she didn't want anything to do with _anybody_ , not even Mrs. G.

After Jo raised the window, she asked, "What is it, Mrs. G.?"

"You haven't had dialysis in over _five days_ , Jo. _That's_ what it is," Mrs. Garrett replied. "Come on. You're getting in the car and going somewhere with me. _Now_."

The only thing in the world Jo wanted to do in that moment was crawl back into bed, but she simply didn't have the strength to try to fight Mrs. Garrett now, so she gave in to her and did as she told her to.

Mrs. Garrett actually drove her to the office building where that _idiot_ social worker and her supervisor worked. She was absolutely _livid,_ and that was putting it mildly. She was so furious, and so determined to get Jo back one way or another, that she decided she was going to take Jo to Peekskill's social services department and let them all see for themselves what kind of condition the Browns had left Jo in. The supervisor's office was adjoined to his subordinate's, and that afternoon, an old friend of his who was a very powerful judge at the New York state level with an awful lot of clout in the New York legal system had just happened to stop by for a visit. While the two old buddies were talking and laughing it up in his office, Mrs. Garrett started _really_ creating a ruckus in his subordinate's office, _demanding_ to talk to him _at once_. She ended up yelling so loud and making the social worker so angry that she started yelling in return, and all their noise was actually enough to make the supervisor and the judge emerge from the adjoining office.

"Glenda, _what in the world_ is going on out here?!" he snapped at her.

"I-I-I'm terribly sorry, Mr. James," Glenda stammered. "This lady just burst in demanding to see you."

"You'd better believe I did!" Mrs. Garrett yelled, and then she walked up to Mr. James and got right up in his face. "Mr. James, you and I don't even know each other, but I can tell based on the way my foster daughter, this young lady, Joanne Polniaczeck, has been treated by the people who work under you that you really don't have a clue what goes on in your own office and what's being done to kids in the foster care system! Either that, or you just don't care!"

"I'm sorry, madam, but you're going to have to leave–"

"I'm not going anywhere! Not until you've seen what's been done to this girl with your own eyes! About a week ago, Jo was removed from my care thanks to Glenda, here, and placed with another foster family, the Browns. Her kidneys are no longer functioning and she needs dialysis to stay alive. Since she has been with the Browns, she has missed not one, but _two_ dialysis appointments! _Two!_ And do you know what has been happening to this girl? Toxins have been building up in her bloodstream! Fluid has been building on her lungs! Come over here. Come over here right now and take a good look at her."

"I'm sorry, but–" Mr. James started to say.

" _Come over here!_ " Mrs. Garrett screamed. " _Now!_ "

"Come on, Bill," the judge told him as he followed Mrs. Garrett over to where Jo was silently standing, and reluctantly, he followed as well.

"Look at her feet. Her legs. Look how swollen they are. Look at her hands, how swollen they are, too. That's because she's gone far too long without dialysis. I don't even know if the Browns have kept her up to date with all her medications and her special diet. _I do know this:_ the minute this girl was removed from my care, she was placed with people who were so uncaring and irresponsible that they neglected her health and allowed her to get sick, _dangerously sick!_ I've been responsible for this girl for quite a while now and I love her dearly, and I cannot, _I will not_ allow you to do this to her!"

"Excuse me, ma'am, but…by any chance, do you work at Eastland Academy?" the judge asked her.

"Yes, I do. I'm the school dietician. Why?"

He stuck out his hand then and shook hands with Mrs. Garrett and said, "I'm George Aston… _Judge_ George Aston. I'm friends with Judge Daniel Lee. I think he plays golf with Eastland's headmaster, Mr. Harris."

"Oh, you mean our former headmaster. A month before the last school year ended, he accepted another position at another school and Mr. Parker took over. He's our headmaster now."

"Oh, yes. Well anyway, Daniel told me all about how that case turned out. He told me all about how the dietician at Eastland stepped in and accepted responsibility for the four girls that got into all that trouble last year, got them jobs in the school cafeteria, and made it possible for them to stay in school. That was you?"

"Yes, it was."

Then he took another look at Jo, and the pieces fell right into place. He'd read about what had happened to Jo in the newspaper. "Is this the girl that was poisoned?"

Mrs. Garrett looked him in the eye and told him, "Yes."

"Is she one of those four girls you took in under your wing last year to keep from getting expelled?"

"Yes, she is."

"Bill, I've seen it happen before in my career, but _I never thought_ that _you_ would actually do something like this. I never thought I would see the day that _you_ would allow one of your subordinates to yank a child away from a caring, responsible guardian like Mrs. Garrett."

Knowing now that with Judge Aston around, he had no choice but to admit his mistake, he said, "I sincerely apologize, Mrs. Garrett. It's obvious a terrible mistake has been made and that Joanne should be returned to your care."

"I'll pull some strings, Mrs. Garrett, and make sure the paperwork goes through just as soon as possible."

"Thank you, Judge Aston. Alright sweetheart, let's get out of here," Mrs. Garrett said, and then she and Jo left.

Judge Aston pulled some strings alright, because Jo was officially back in Mrs. Garrett's custody two days later, although no one really said anything when she brought her back to Eastland as soon as her dialysis was over. Right after they came out of the office building that day, Mrs. Garrett stopped at the payphone they had right outside and called Jo's doctor and asked him to meet them at the dialysis center to examine her, and since Jo hadn't had dialysis in so long, he agreed. She wanted to get Jo on dialysis right away, of course, but she also wanted the doctor to take a look at her in case her condition was so serious, she needed to be hospitalized. Thankfully, he said that it would be okay to take her straight home as soon as she was finished dialyzing that day, and that's exactly what Mrs. Garrett did.

One night the following week, Mrs. Garrett, Jo, and Blair were all sitting together in the lounge when Blair asked, "Hey, you guys, I was just wondering. Are you going to make it official?"

"Make what official, Blair?" asked Jo.

"Mrs. Garrett, are you going to adopt Jo? Are you guys officially going to become mother and daughter?"

"Why do you ask?" Mrs. Garrett inquired.

"Well I was just thinking that you two may want to seriously consider it. I mean, Jo, you're still sixteen. You'll be seventeen in three months, but that's still a little over a whole year before your eighteenth birthday. Nobody will be able to take you away from Eastland when you're eighteen, but this whole thing could actually happen to you all over again. What if someday when you're still only seventeen, a new social worker takes over your case and sends you away again to another couple that neglects you and doesn't take you in for your dialysis?"

Jo shot Mrs. Garrett a pleading glance for help, and she could tell that Jo really didn't want to talk about it with Blair, so she responded, "Blair, I know how concerned you are about Jo, but this is a discussion that Jo and I should have together in private."

"I understand, Mrs. Garrett." In that moment, Blair yawned. "Well, if you'll excuse me, I think I'll go on to bed. Goodnight."

"Goodnight, Blair," Mrs. Garrett told her.

"Goodnight," said Jo.

Once she was gone, Mrs. Garrett realized this really was the perfect opportunity to approach the subject with Jo. She knew Jo really hadn't been up to discussing it throughout the past week as she'd settled back into her familiar routine at Eastland.

"Jo, how _do_ you feel about that?" she asked.

"About what? You adopting me? Us 'officially' becoming mother and daughter?"

"Yes."

"Honestly?"

"Honestly."

"I think it stinks!" To say the very least, Mrs. Garrett had been taken aback by Jo's response, and in that moment, Jo saw the hurt look in her eyes. "I'm sorry, Mrs. Garrett. I didn't mean it that way. It's not that I don't want _you_ as a mother; it's that after what my last mother did to me, I don't want _a_ mother, period. I basically want to avoid having parents in my life altogether. Frankly, I wish I was eighteen right now. Then I could be independent and just totally _free_ of this whole parent issue once and for all."

"I understand."

"It's nothing personal, Mrs. Garrett, but I don't want to be adopted, by you or by anybody. After going through the aftermath of Hurricane Rose and Hurricane Charlie, I'm basically done with parents. I don't ever want another parent in my life. _Ever._ But the thing is, I don't ever want what just happened to happen again, either. I couldn't take it if I lost you guys all over again. Blair, Natalie, and Tootie all have families of their own outside of Eastland. For me, you and the girls are it. I don't have any family outside of the four of you anymore."

Mrs. Garrett had often wondered throughout the past week why Jo hadn't called her and asked her to take her in for her dialysis, and instinctively, she just _knew_ that the answer had something to do with what had happened. She hadn't asked Jo about it before now because she really had sensed it that Jo wasn't ready to discuss it yet. However, now, she really got the sense that it was time to ask, so she did.

"Is that why you didn't call me and let me know you needed a ride to the dialysis center? You know perfectly well I would have come and picked you up and taken you there myself."

After a long pause, Jo sighed and answered, "Yeah. I've taken a lot of heavy blows this year, Mrs. G. But I was always able to push through the pain and keep going. When they took me away from you and the girls, though, I…it was just too much. I just couldn't see the point of going on anymore if I couldn't be with all of you."

"Oh, Jo," Mrs. Garrett gasped as she wrapped her arm around Jo's shoulders and held her close, fighting off tears. Jo was always the toughest of the girls. She definitely had the most grit, the most fight in her. However, there was only so much emotional agony that even someone as tough and strong as Jo could take before it finally became too much. "Jo, I won't try to adopt you if it's not what you want. But I'm asking you to consider it. To tell you the truth, I've been thinking a lot here lately about everything Blair said, and the thought of all of this happening again just scares the living daylights out of me, especially now, in light of everything you just told me. I don't think it's likely that anything like that will happen now that we have someone like Judge Aston on our side, but Blair is right. If your case does end up being transferred to another social worker besides Mr. James in that office before you turn eighteen, this insanity just might happen again, and I don't want to take that chance. I know it usually takes a long time to adopt, but I believe Blair can help us there. It was thanks to her family and all their connections that I was able to be named your foster mother so quickly, so hopefully, we'll be able to cut through all the red tape and speed the process up again. I know how much you need us now, Jo, and we need you, too. You have no idea how much the girls and Howard and I missed you when you were gone and how worried we all were when we found out you missed dialysis."

"Well if we _were_ to go through with this thing, I want it understood between the two of us right from the start that you and I would be mother and daughter in name only. After the adoption, I don't want to call you Mom. I want to go right on calling you Mrs. Garrett. And I don't want you to see me as your kid. I just want you to see me as one of the girls, just like always."

"Of course. I'll go along with whatever you feel most comfortable with. I completely understand why you wouldn't want another parent in your life after what the Polniaczecks did to you."

"Speaking of the name Polniaczeck, though, if it's alright with you, _I do_ want to change my last name to yours. After what Charlie and Rose put me through, I don't want their name anymore."

 _That_ really tore at Mrs. Garrett's heartstrings. On the one hand, she was deeply touched that Jo wanted to take her last name. On the other, it really broke her heart that her own parents had caused her so much heartache and turmoil and damage inside that she didn't even want their name anymore.

Mrs. Garrett touched Jo's cheek then and told her, "I would be very honored for you to take my last name, Jo." Then Jo smiled.

Jo stuck out her hand in that next moment and said, "In that case, we have a deal. Put her there, my new mino."

Mrs. Garrett shook hands with her, but her face registered her confusion as she said, "Mino?"

"M-I-N-O," Jo spelled the name out. "Mother-In-Name-Only."

"Oh, I see," said Mrs. Garrett.

She did a good job of hiding it then, but the truth was, Jo's reaction really hurt her heart. _The last thing_ she wanted was to be a mother-in-name-only to Jo, and the fact of the matter was, when she told Jo that she would agree to not think of her as her child, she'd been lying, which of course for Mrs. Garrett was a very rare thing. But she simply couldn't help but feel the kind of love for Jo that a mother would feel for her little girl right now. She couldn't just turn those feelings off the way a person would flip off a light switch. However, even though she _yearned_ for Jo to let her in and allow her to be a mother to her, she completely understood why Jo was reluctant to have another mother in her life after what the last one had done to her. She understood that she really had to let Jo call the shots and let _her_ be the one to decide what she felt ready for and when she felt ready for it. Perhaps with the help of Blair's family, they could speed up the adoption process, but Mrs. Garrett knew that helping Jo find healing from all the physical and emotional trauma she'd been through was _not_ something that could be rushed. She knew they still had a long road ahead of them.


	7. Selfish Coward

**Chapter 7: Selfish Coward**

"It's the proverbial rock and a hard place, Howard," Mrs. Garrett complained to him as they stood together in the kitchen in early December. "After all these months, Jo's kidney function still hasn't returned and Dr. Martin is quite sure it never will, and as if that weren't bad enough, she still doesn't tolerate dialysis well. Dr. Martin says that what's probably best for Jo at this point is a kidney transplant. Kidney transplants, even from non-related donors, happen rather frequently and are usually very successful. Jo doesn't know, but that three-day weekend I took for myself, when I said I was going to visit my cousin who lives in New Jersey, I was actually in the hospital so that Dr. Martin could run all the necessary tests to see if it was possible for me to donate one of my kidneys. I had to go through a lot of psychological testing, too, to make sure I was emotionally capable of handling it."

"What did all the tests say? Can you donate?" he asked with great interest – _and_ admiration. He and Edna had been seeing each other for over a year now, and even though he'd never told her, the truth was, he really did love her and he was constantly amazed by all her compassion and generosity towards others.

"Well I'm not a genetic match because I'm not related to Jo by blood, but I can still donate my kidney to Jo. However, there's still a problem, a _big_ problem."

"What's that?"

"Even though all the medical testing and psychological testing on my end checked out, Dr. Martin feels that we still may have to wait a long time before we can proceed. After everything that Jo has been through, he doesn't think that she's emotionally capable of going through with the transplant right now. He doesn't think she'll pass all the psychological tests she, too, will have to go through to make sure she can handle the mental and emotional impact of the procedure if we were to try to have the transplant done now. And unfortunately, I have to agree."

"I have a feeling this where the rock and the hard place comes in."

"Exactly, Howard. When Jo first came home from the hospital, I decided that I would give her a little bit of time, maybe a few weeks or so, before I would really try to get her to open up to me and start facing the emotional impact of everything her parents have done to her. But then we found out that giving her kidneys the support of dialysis wasn't enough in the end for them to start functioning again like we all hoped they would and that she has to remain on dialysis indefinitely. To make matters even worse, like I just said a minute ago, she doesn't tolerate dialysis well. And because of that, physically, she's a lot weaker than she used to be, so I've really been afraid of trying to make Jo face all the pain _I know_ she's carrying deep down inside. As sick as she is so much of the time already, I don't want to run the risk of making her even sicker. But yet if I _don't_ push her to start dealing with this, she'll never be psychologically fit to undergo the transplant."

"I see what you mean. Well Edna, at least she isn't running away from everything like she used to. That's a start."

Edna looked him in the eyes then and told him, "Oh, she's running. She may not have gotten on her motorcycle and run away from Eastland, but she _is_ running. She's just found a more creative way of doing it."

"What do you mean?"

"Haven't you noticed that despite all the incredible trauma Jo has gone through, her grades haven't slipped at all? She was at the top of her class by the end of the last school year, and she's still at the top now. She's still a straight-A student, and her GPA is still sky-high. Whenever she's not working in the cafeteria or getting her dialysis, or asleep, she's constantly immersed in her schoolwork."

"You say all that like it's a _bad_ thing. I think it's wonderful."

"Don't you understand? Jo may not be physically running, but she's _mentally_ running. She's pouring everything she has into her schoolwork so she won't have to think about all the pain she's in and start dealing with it."

"I never thought of that," Howard commented, and then as he really stopped to think about it, he found himself utterly amazed at just how brilliantly insightful Edna Garrett truly was, and he began to think to himself that she really was in the wrong line of work. She _was_ a wonderful cook, but she was a natural child psychologist.

"That's why I agreed to let her go back to the apartment building where she grew up in the Bronx to collect all her things from Mrs. Polniaczeck's old apartment. Naturally, the landlord and his wife rented it out to new tenants after she went to jail. Mrs. Polniaczeck was renting a furnished apartment from them, so all the furniture belongs to them, but they've been holding on to everything else that was in the apartment for Jo."

"Mrs. Polniaczeck was sent to prison last month after her case went to court, wasn't she?"

"Yes, and she got the maximum sentence, thank God. That _monster_ Jo had for a mother is going to be behind bars for over the next two decades. She was even denied parole."

"It's really something that her case went to court as soon as it did. My friend's wife was killed in a robbery one night, and the guy who did it actually sat in jail over three years before his case finally went to court."

"Well I'm just glad she received the maximum sentence and that as of this moment, she's sitting all alone in her maximum security prison cell where she can't do any more harm to Jo or to anybody else."

"Hear, hear!"

"Anyway, as I was saying, when Jo told me at first that she wanted to go back to her old apartment building to collect all her things, and especially when she told me that she wanted to hop on her bike and go there alone, I wasn't too thrilled with the idea. Maybe I'm just an overprotective mother hen, but it _is_ December. The thought of Jo being out in the cold winter air so long on her motorcycle worried me. I don't want to risk her getting sick with a cold on top of everything else she's already going through physically. And I was also worried that it might be too painful for Jo to face going into that apartment building all by herself. But then as I got to thinking about it, I decided that it just might be a good idea after all. This just might be Jo taking that crucial first step towards facing all of this and dealing with it, and maybe she does need some privacy in order to do so."

"Yeah, you're probably right. And don't worry so much. That Jo's a tough girl, Edna. She's very strong. Personally, I think you ought to go ahead and start trying to talk to her about everything so she can deal with it and then move forward with getting her transplant, and _hopefully_ , with getting her life back. She can't run from this forever. I know you're afraid about what might happen to her physically if she faces all that pain now, but have a little faith in Jo. She's stronger than you're giving her credit for. I know it won't be easy. _None_ of this has been easy and taking this step definitely won't be, but she _does_ have what it takes inside to get through it all, especially with you in her corner."

Edna smiled then, deeply touched by Howard's caring, concern, and words of wisdom. In that next moment, she put her arms around him and gave him a very long kiss. After the kiss ended, she told him, "Thank you for that, Howard. I don't know how I would have gotten through these past several months without you. If you hadn't been there for me the way you were, always ready to listen, I think I would have lost my mind."

As Howard looked into those beautiful blue eyes he loved so much, he gave in to his desire to give her another great big kiss in return. She didn't have to _thank_ him for being there. He _adored_ Edna, and he _wanted_ to be there for her more than anything. "Well, Honey Bun, that's what friends are for," he told her. In that moment, Edna smiled once again at his cute little nickname for her. He'd been calling her "Honey Bun" since practically the first moment they started dating, and he'd told her he liked to call her that simply because she was so sweet.

Edna really had hit it off with Howard right off the bat. He'd enlisted in the Army when he was eighteen, and much like Edna, he'd been all over the world, and it hadn't taken them long to discover that they had a lot in common, especially when it came to traveling and their mutual love of cooking, and their mutual faith in Christ as well. He finally left his military career several years ago and started a new career as a cook, and he had worked in several restaurants before becoming the assistant cook at Eastland and meeting Edna. And he wasted no time whatsoever in asking her out. He'd always wanted to get married and start a family of his own one day, but even though he'd had plenty of girlfriends through the years, he'd simply never found the right woman, and he'd eventually given up on ever finding that special someone to spend the rest of his life with. He hadn't been looking for love when he met Edna Garrett; he'd merely been looking for someone to spend a little time with and have a good time with.

And Edna had really found impossible _not_ to have a good time with Howard. He may have been in the military a lot of his life, but it hadn't made him overly stern or strict. More than anything, much of the time, he really was just a sweet, lovable, wacky, silly, overgrown child at heart; a true clown. He was _always_ goofing around and making Edna laugh so hard. However, he was also a _wonderful_ friend to Edna, and he knew when he needed to be serious, too. He'd had plenty of times when he was his usual silly self with Edna and made her laugh over the past several months, but he'd also been a real tower of strength for her through it all as well. Like Edna, Howard also had a real soft spot in his heart for the girls. He'd always hated it that he'd never had children, and he couldn't help but love the girls the way Edna did, which was why it had been equally hard for him to see Jo go through everything she had, and why it had been so important to him to really be there for Edna now. Neither one of them had exactly come right out and admitted it, but the fact of the matter was, everything they'd gone through together over the past few months really had deepened their bond and made them a lot closer.

But while Mrs. Garrett was really enjoying opening her heart up to Howard and vice versa that evening that they had the kitchen and the cafeteria all to themselves (since Blair, Natalie, and Tootie had gone out to see a movie), tragically, Jo was getting hurt _yet again_ and becoming more determined to close off her heart forever. When Jo made it to her old apartment building that evening, unfortunately, her mind was bombarded with memories of her childhood. She remembered as she walked the hall how she would race down that very same hall when she was a little girl after having seen her "mother's" car pull up from their apartment window, and just jump into her arms after she'd been gone to work all day. She remembered all the hugs, the cuddles, the kisses from her childhood. And then she remembered how everything changed; how the two parents she'd always believed loved each other so much seemed to transform into bitter enemies practically overnight for some reason. She remembered all the nights she cried herself to sleep as she overheard them shouting at each other and going at each other's throats. And then she remembered waking up one day when she was twelve years-old and hearing the devastating truth from her "mother" that her "father" was gone and was probably never coming back.

And she remembered how, at that point in her life, everything changed. _Her whole world_ had just been turned upside down and _absolutely crushed_. Her dad, _her very own father_ , had just up and left her one day out of the blue. Charlie Polniaczeck hadn't been able to handle how miserable his life at home with Rose was, and not even the fact that he had a little girl who still _badly_ needed her father in her life was enough to make him stay. He didn't even _try_ to make arrangements to visit Jo or spend _any_ time with her at all. He just left and never came back because it was the easier thing to do. Their shotgun wedding really had been a terrible mistake. Charlie and Rose Polniaczeck had never belonged together at all, but neither one of them had _really_ paid the price for the mistake they made by getting married. Charlie, especially, had just left Jo to foot the bill in his stead.

After Charlie left, because he was no longer there to listen to Rose's whining, complaining, and angry tantrums, it all fell to a twelve-year-old little girl. It was _not_ Jo's job to be Rose's mother, counselor, or therapist, but she'd been forced to become all those things for her when they were behind closed doors. Out in public, of course, Rose was the strong, self-sacrificing, hardworking Mother of the Year, holding down two jobs she hated in order to support her daughter as a single parent. And while in some ways, she did _seem_ to still act as though she loved Jo, the more she cried and whined about how miserable she was in her "therapy sessions" with her own daughter as the therapist, the more obvious it eventually became to Jo that her "mother" really did resent her deep down.

Jo never stopped believing that Rose really did love her, but the more "therapy sessions" she had to give to her own immature, whining "mother," the more painful it became for her to stay at home. After all, it was _Jo_ who was the child and needed _Rose_ to be the mother, but she simply wasn't. Rose _was_ hardworking, and she _did_ do things for Jo and with Jo, and at the time, that had been enough to convince Jo that she did care about her. But at the same time, whenever Rose wasn't away at work, fifty percent of that time at home was spent crying over her own daughter's shoulder, when it really _should_ have been the other way around, of course.

And that was precisely why Jo ended up joining a street gang when she was fifteen. Whenever Jo wasn't in school, the _last_ place she wanted to be was at home. And even though being in a gang was _hardly_ a good idea, the cold hard fact was, it was far more comforting for her to be around all the other kids in that gang who were going through some of the same things she was than it was for her to be Rose's therapist at home. Obviously, Jo's old street gang was _not_ a healthy influence on her, and she did start getting into trouble and breaking a lot of rules, both at school and at home. But again, the cold hard fact was, she was getting important needs met in that gang that were _not_ being met at home. Her old gang gave her a sense of family and loyalty that she _certainly_ hadn't found with Rose and Charlie. When she was with her old gang, she _knew_ she was with people who would look out for her. She _definitely_ never got that feeling when she had to provide "therapy sessions" for Rose, all the while she was _reeling_ inside over the way Charlie had abandoned her.

And walking down that hall, being in that building, and merely being in that neighborhood brought all those things back with painfully sharp clarity, so to say the very least, Jo was already feeling badly enough when she knocked on Mr. and Mrs. Peterson's door that evening. But when Mrs. Peterson answered the door and let Jo in, things got much, _much_ worse, very quickly.

"Oh, Jo, you poor dear," she said to her as they walked into her living room, which looked very similar to Jo's old living room. "Oh, I know you've been through so much this year. It's all so tragic."

"Yeah, it is. Uh…Mrs. Peterson, I…I'd really rather not talk about it, if you don't mind."

"Of course. I understand. But before we change the subject, Jo, just let me say this: try not to blame your mother."

 _She's not my mother, you creep! True mothers don't betray their kids like this!_ Jo just _screamed_ inside, although she didn't say anything to Mrs. Peterson out loud because she really was tired and didn't feel like having an argument and making a scene. She simply stood there as anger silently began building up in her green eyes.

"Don't get me wrong, Jo," she continued. "What your mother did to you was appalling, but I don't think it was really _Rose_ who did it. I think it was the mental illness that made her act that way. Her life's just been so hard, Jo. It was only natural that she would become depressed, and I think that depression just took over and made her do things she wouldn't normally do."

 _Of course_ , Jo said to herself. _Depression_ always _gives a person an automatic right to poison somebody, even if that somebody is your own kid!_

"She had to give up so much. She had all these dreams of going to college. And then Charlie came along."

 _And after him,_ I _came along_ , Jo thought to herself. _So in other words, you're saying that it's ultimately_ my _fault that she had to give up her dreams, huh? And ultimately_ my _fault that she did the things she did?_

"And you can't hold onto all that anger forever. It's not healthy, and it'll only destroy you inside if you do. You have to forgive her sometime. She _is_ your mother, after all. She brought you into this world."

 _And naturally, being my 'mother' just makes it perfectly okay for her to treat me like garbage and try to take my life! I guess being a kid means I have less value than she does or something, so she can just treat me however she pleases regardless if it's wrong! I guess being a kid means you're subhuman, like a dog or an object owned by your parents or something._

"You know what, Mrs. Peterson? Forget about all the old things from my apartment. I don't want _anything_ from this place. Not my memories of this building. Not my stuff from my old apartment. And _not_ your advice," Jo told her with _amazing_ calmness, despite the fact that she was just _aching_ to punch her lights out! And in that next moment, she simply turned around and walked out, leaving Mrs. Peterson just standing there, completely dumbfounded.

To put it mildly, Jo was _bursting_ with not just mere anger, but _rage_ inside. Rage that needed to be _expressed._ She still wasn't ready to talk about it all with Mrs. Garrett. Not yet. But she needed to _do something_ to say to the world that what her "parents" did to her was selfish, wrong, and downright _evil_ , and that them donating a sperm and an egg at the moment of her conception _did not_ give them the right to just go around treating her as they pleased, without _any_ concern at all for the impact it would have on her.

There was nothing she could do about Rose. Rose was locked away in prison. But this wasn't just about Rose. This was about Charlie and _his_ acts of evil selfishness just as much as it was about Rose and the evil she did to Jo. Charlie had caused her truly _horrific_ pain when he abandoned her at age twelve, but that pain was multiplied by about a million when Jo learned that that _creep_ had actually abandoned her again when she was at death's door in the ICU. Mrs. Garrett had tried to keep it from her at first, wanting to protect her from the agony of the truth, but Jo did end up finding out what really happened before she came home from the hospital. Jo knew that Charlie had come to see her, had taken one look at her, and had run out on her, _just_ like he did when she was twelve. She was sick, _dying_ even, and _he still left her!_ Had he been by her side like a _real_ father would have been instead of getting drunk in a bar feeling sorry for himself and then _stupidly_ getting behind the wheel, he would still be alive today.

But even though the scum wasn't alive so Jo could tell him face to face what a pathetic piece of garbage he was for abandoning her again, there was _still_ something she could do. That evening, after she walked out of her old apartment building, Jo Polniaczeck made up her mind that she would tell the world just exactly who and what her "father" _really_ was.

Jo went to a nearby store and bought a can of spray paint, and then she went to the cemetery. After locating Charlie's tombstone, Jo spray-painted the words "Selfish Coward" on his grave.


	8. Prejudice

**Note to readers:** First off, again, thank you all for the kind reviews and support. I always appreciate it! Second, I just wanted to warn everybody that this is not going to be a very kind chapter to Mrs. Garrett. I want to assure everyone that yes, I do know how wonderful Mrs. Garrett is and I do love her. However, I'm not going to lie. In the season one episode "Like Mother, Like Daughter" and in the season two episode "The Secret," Mrs. Garrett just **irks the crap** out of me! It's also equally irked me the way she shuts the girls down with the lame excuse, "Your parents only sent you away to Eastland to give you a good education!" whenever they expressed anger about it on the show. And this chapter deals with that head on, but again, I just wanted to assure everybody that I wasn't just trying to be mean to Mrs. Garrett or anything. I just wanted to deal with these issues with her because they've always made me so mad. This chapter also really deals with the issue of prejudice against young people, which is an issue that's extremely important to me and very close to my heart. Yes, as usual, things will get kind of intense, but hopefully, you'll all enjoy it. And as always, thanks for stopping by. :)

 **Chapter 8: Prejudice**

Mrs. Garrett had really wanted to try to talk to Jo and get her to start opening up about everything when she came back from her little trip to the Bronx, but she could really sense how furious she was inside for some reason, and something in her gut told her that now was not the right time to try to talk to her, so she decided not to push it. Even though it _was_ really important for Jo to start dealing with everything soon so that she would be psychologically fit to undergo the transplant procedure, Mrs. Garrett could sense it that something had happened while she'd been in the Bronx and that she needed a little more time to process it first. However, she _did_ mention it more than once over the following week that she was there if and when Jo wanted to talk about it.

But Jo didn't seem to want to talk to anyone about anything, and Mrs. Garrett and the girls all noticed that she really seemed to have a chip on her shoulder these days. As Blair, Natalie, and Tootie observed one day when they were talking in their room, Jo was full of anger and was _not_ on auto-pilot anymore.

"Jo's really been grumpy lately," Natalie commented to the girls one afternoon after classes were over for the day.

"Yeah. It's really hard to look forward to the Christmas holidays when you're living with the Grinch," Tootie complained.

"Come on, you two. Be fair. Jo has a _right_ to be grumpy after everything she's gone through this year," Blair admonished them.

"I don't mean to be unfair to Jo," said Tootie. "I know she's been through a lot. It's just that here lately, whenever I'm around her, she's borderline _hostile_. It makes me feel like she hates me or something, and that's not fair. I didn't do anything to Jo."

"I don't mean to be unfair to Jo either, but Tootie _does_ have a point," Natalie agreed. "She makes me feel the same way."

"You guys, she's not mad at either one of you, and she doesn't hate you. Jo's mad at her parents for all the pain and turmoil they've caused her. She's mad at her kidneys for not functioning anymore. She's mad at all the fatigue, weakness, headaches, and other symptoms she's experiencing all the time and she's mad at not being able to feel like herself anymore. She's mad at everything that's happened to her. She's not mad at us," Blair explained. Even though Blair Warner _was_ a spoiled, snobbish little princess and a real idiot at times, she also had her moments where she could be surprisingly mature and insightful about things.

"Maybe you're right, Blair," Natalie mused.

"Of course I am," Blair said in her typical snobbish way.

"I know that Jo's been through a lot and I really do feel sorry for her," Tootie said. "It's just that she's simply not our Jo anymore, and it's been months. I mean, Jo may be really angry now, and she was always hard and tough, but she used to have a sensitive side and be really nice, too. When are things _ever_ going to get back to normal around here?"

"Tootie, Jo's father was killed and her own mother tried to murder her. You don't get over something like that in just a few months. It's going to take more time than that," Blair told her. Like Natalie and Tootie, Blair, too, had naïvely expected Jo to be more like her normal self after they all returned from their summer vacation, but since then, she came to realize that it would probably be quite a while before Jo would be able to start acting like Jo again.

"Yeah, Blair, you're probably right," Natalie agreed. "But I hope Jo doesn't stay like this for too much longer. For one thing, I really miss the old Jo, and for another, I don't know how much more of this I can take. She's really been driving me crazy here lately."

"Well anyway, Natalie, what do you say we go over to Terry's dorm for a while? You know she just got that new Jermaine Jackson album that came out last week. Maybe she'll let us listen to it."

"Sure, Tootie. That's a great idea. And anyway, I'd much rather be listening to Jermaine over at Terry's than stick around here so that Jo can bite my head off again," said Natalie, and then she and Tootie left.

A couple of minutes later, while Blair sat on the side of her bed staring into her compact mirror, touching up her makeup, Jo came in and, as usual, slammed the door shut before stomping over to her own bed and sitting down on it.

Blair, Natalie, and Tootie had practically been walking on eggshells around Jo all week since her trip to the Bronx, but Blair had finally had enough and decided she was going to say something to her about it. Blair did understand why Jo was so mad at the world, but at the same time, she was worried about her, and on top of that, even though Natalie and Tootie really were too young to truly understand the kind of pain Jo was in, they _were_ right. Despite the fact that Jo was going through a very great deal right now, it still wasn't fair for her to make all the people around her pay for it.

So without further ado, Blair just spat it out and got right to the point, ironically, just like Jo would do. She said, "Alright, Jo. I've had it. What's going on with you?"

"What are you talking about?"

"Don't give me that. You've been a jerk all week long and we're all getting sick of it. I know something happened to you when you were back at your old apartment building because ever since then, you've been snapping everybody's heads off."

Mrs. Garrett came walking down the hall in that moment, carrying a stack of fresh towels and washcloths in her arms to put in the bathroom. Under normal circumstances, Mrs. Garrett would never just stand around and eavesdrop on private conversations, of course, but she, too, was very worried about Jo, and when she overheard that Blair was trying to get her to open up about it, she couldn't help but want to stick around and listen to what Jo said in response.

"Well excuse me if I'm not Miss Congeniality, Blair. Why don't _you_ try getting poisoned by your own mother, abandoned by your own father for the second time around, kidney damage, and getting put on dialysis, and _then_ see how pleasant and polite _you_ feel like acting towards everybody?!"

"I'm sorry, Jo. I didn't mean it that way. I can't imagine what you must be going through."

"That's right! You can't!" Jo snapped.

"We're _worried_ , okay?!" Blair snapped back. "You're our friend, Jo. _More_ than our friend. You're family to us. _To me._ And I know you. I know the _real_ reason you've been such a jerk this week is because you're in a lot of pain, possibly even _more_ pain than you were already in before you went to the Bronx. I know that something happened there. _What?_ "

"I don't want to talk about it!" Jo snapped again.

"Well sometimes in life, what we _want_ and what we _need_ are two different things, Jo. _You need_ to talk about this, whether you _want_ to or not."

"You wouldn't understand!"

" _Try me._ I know I can't understand everything you're going through, Jo, but I might be able to understand some of it."

Jo let out an impatient sigh and said, "You're not going to quit until I start talking, are you?"

"No, I'm not," Blair responded.

"Alright, alright, already. If it'll get you off my back, I'll talk."

"Good," Blair said, and then she sat down next to Jo on the side of her bed. "So tell me, just _what_ exactly happened when you were back in the Bronx?"

"The little old landlady there, Mrs. Peterson, said a bunch of really lousy things to me that only made me feel worse than I was already feeling."

"What did she say to you?"

"She made a bunch of crappy excuses for Rose! That's what she did! She got on my case to forgive her. 'She is your mother, after all,'" Jo repeated Mrs. Peterson's words in a mocking tone of voice. "As if donating an egg at the moment of my conception automatically makes the hell she's put me through okay or something; as if, because she's my mother – in a manner of speaking, anyway – that makes her _attempting to take my life_ no big deal! She said, 'Oh, it wasn't really _Rose_ who did that to you. It was the depression she was going through; it just took over. She was so depressed because she had to give up all her dreams when Charlie came along and you were born.' So in other words, her trying to _kill_ me was actually _my_ fault for being born!"

"She actually _said that_ to you?" Blair asked, flabbergasted that anyone would be that insensitive, or that _stupid_. And so was Mrs. Garrett.

"In so many words, yes."

"That's unbelievable," Blair said quietly, shocked at what she just heard.

"You know, I realized something after I had that conversation with Mrs. Peterson, though. I realized that there are actually all kinds of prejudice in this world. There's racial prejudice, and there's also prejudice against kids. When Mrs. Peterson took that kind of an attitude with me and actually _made excuses_ for what Rose did to me, what she was _really_ saying was that because I was the kid and Rose was the egg donor at the moment of my conception, my soul and my life didn't have as much value as hers did, and therefore, that meant that it was no big deal for Rose to try to murder me. In essence, what she was basically saying was that Rose had more worth, more value as a human being than I did because she donated some DNA to me sixteen years ago; that being a kid made me some kind of second-class citizen."

"You're right, Jo. Mrs. Peterson's attitude towards you _was_ despicable, and very prejudiced. If you hadn't been Rose Polniaczeck's daughter; if you had been an adult who wasn't related to her and she poisoned you, Mrs. Peterson probably _would not_ have made a bunch of lame excuses for her _then_."

" _Exactly_. But _why_ does Rose get a pass _to try to kill me_ from all the people in this world like Mrs. Peterson? Why do all the Mrs. Petersons of the world make excuses for her? Because being a young person and being descended from her means, in _their_ minds, anyway, that I as a human being have less value, so that makes an attempt on my life no big deal."

"You know, you're right. There are all kinds of prejudice in this world, _including_ prejudice against young people. Now that I think about it, I believe that prejudice against young people is one of the most widely accepted and tolerated kinds of prejudice that there is."

"After my experience with Mrs. Peterson, I can't help but agree with you. Do you ever notice how if a kid disrespects a parent, the kid always gets an earful, but if a parent disrespects a kid, I'd say about fifty percent of the time in this world, it's overlooked?"

"Actually, Jo, I know exactly what you're talking about. Would you believe that I actually encountered that kind of an attitude from _Mrs. Garrett_ once? Not to the same degree as Mrs. Peterson, of course, but still, it happened."

The moment Blair said that, Edna Garrett's blue eyes grew as wide as saucers. She was really shocked to hear Blair say something like that. When, _when_ had she _ever_ displayed an attitude of prejudice towards _any_ of her girls because they were young? Again, _she knew_ it was wrong to eavesdrop, but now, she really couldn't help but keep listening. She _had_ to know what Blair meant by what she just said to Jo.

" _Mrs. Garrett? Prejudice?_ Come on, Blair! Be serious!"

" _I am_ being serious. It happened during the first year Mrs. Garrett started working at Eastland, the year before you came here. My mother came up for Parents' Night, and I overheard her planning a big romantic dinner with another one of the parents, Mr. Branch – whose wife just _happened_ to be back home. I've seen enough of my mother in action over the years to be able to tell when she was getting ready to start up another one of her love affairs. Now don't get me wrong, Jo. _I do_ love my mother, but I was _so hurt_ that the _one night_ that was supposed to be for spending time with me at Eastland, she spends it making plans to fool around with a married man instead. She couldn't even get her mind off men _one night_ for my sake. And naturally, it really hurt me and made me angry that she would actually start an affair with a married man. I was so disappointed in her, even ashamed of her."

"I'll bet you were! I would've been hurt, angry, and ashamed of my mom too if I'd been in your shoes. Your mom was really rotten and selfish to pull a stunt like that, Blair. She didn't even care about the impact that would have on you! She didn't even care about how starting up an affair with another student's father would make all the other kids at Eastland talk about you."

" _Exactly._ And besides, what kind of an example is that to set for your teenage daughter, anyway?"

"A lousy one!"

" _Exactly._ Anyway, I walked right up to my mother that night and I told her to her face that I was ashamed of her."

"Good for you. What happened?"

"She hit me."

"She _hit_ you?"

"Not very hard. It was just a little slap, but it was like rubbing salt into my wounds."

" _It doesn't matter_ if it was 'just a little slap.' Blair, if you hit somebody, you hit somebody, and unless you do it in self-defense, it's wrong. It doesn't matter if it was your mother or not. As a matter of fact, the fact that it was _your own mother_ makes it even _worse_ in my book. It doesn't matter if you got mad and told her you were ashamed of her. She brought that on herself by fooling around with a married man. If parents want their daughter to be proud of them, they should conduct their lives in an honorable way, and there is _nothing_ honorable about starting up an affair with a married man at your daughter's school, _in front of your daughter's classmates._ Monica Warner really treated you like dirt when she did that."

"I agree. And after she actually _hit_ me, how do you think Mrs. Garrett reacted? Was she, at the _very_ least, _upset_ that Mom hit me? Did it bother her in the _least_ little way that Mom was disrespecting me and hurting me like that, and setting me such a terrible example? No. I get _understandably_ hurt and angry because my mom is starting up an affair with a married man, my mom _hits me_ , and yet, it's not _Mom_ who gets the lecture from Mrs. Garrett. No, _I_ get lectured. I get lectured about how loving a person means you have to 'love the whole package, warts and all,' as Mrs. Garrett put it.

"Now she _was_ right, of course. Loving a person _does_ mean that you have to take the good with the bad and accept them for who they are. But deep down, it always really hurt me and made me angry that my mother did something to cause me so much pain, and Mrs. Garrett never said a word about it. By her saying nothing about the way my mother was hurting me inside, and by her saying nothing about my mother hitting me, she was sending me a silent message, Jo. And that message was that it was okay for Mom to set a bad example for me, cause me a lot of pain, and even _hit_ me; that because I was a kid, it was no big deal for her to disrespect me like that. Maybe she was right about everything she said in her little lecture to me that night, but it was also wrong that I got treated like that by my mother and she never said _anything_ to _her_."

"And why _didn't_ she say anything to your mother? Simple. The Great Edna Garrett has prejudice in her heart against young people just like Mrs. Peterson does."

Obviously, hearing Blair and Jo saying such things about her was a real dagger to Mrs. Garrett's heart. Nine times out of ten, if the girls had a complaint against "The Great Edna Garrett," it would be the girls who were in the wrong and not Mrs. Garrett. However, this was actually that rare one time out of ten where that _wasn't_ the case. After listening to everything Blair had just said to Jo, Mrs. Garrett _had_ to admit it that she _did_ have a very real point. Of course, Mrs. Garrett would _never_ hurt one of her girls, not on purpose, anyway. She really had been trying to be _helpful_ to Blair that night, but she hadn't considered the fact that because Blair was so deeply hurt, she really needed to vent her anger about what her mother was doing, and she _also_ never considered the fact that Blair needed _reassurance_ from her that it was _not_ okay for her mother to treat her like that. Blair and Jo were absolutely right. Monica Warner _had_ been _dreadfully_ disrespectful to her daughter that night, and had basically gotten off scot-free, even after _hitting her_ , while it had been _Blair_ who had gotten the lecture. To say the least, that _was_ terribly unfair, and the more Mrs. Garrett thought about it, the more she wondered if she in fact hadn't acted that way because of a teeny, tiny bit of prejudice lurking around in her heart against young people that she hadn't even realized was there before.

"I think _every_ adult has a bit of prejudice in their hearts against young people," Blair continued. "I for one just _hate it_ the way that society seems to take this attitude that if you're a teenager, you're just automatically bad or something. I mean, I know teens can get into a lot of trouble. I know _we've_ certainly gotten into trouble ourselves, but we're not bad or automatically worthy of contempt just because we're teenagers. Not _all_ teenagers are disrespectful, annoying people, but that _is_ the attitude that society takes." Again, Blair was being surprisingly insightful. Even though the majority of the time she could act _so stupid_ , Blair _did_ have her intelligent moments.

"I also hate it how adults take the attitude that because we're kids, that just automatically means right off the bat that we're stupid and we don't know what we're talking about. Maybe we don't have as much experience as adults do, but that doesn't mean we're just automatic idiots, either. And it _doesn't_ mean that our viewpoint on things should be automatically tossed aside and not taken seriously."

"I agree with you, Jo," Blair assured her.

 _And so do I_ , Mrs. Garrett thought to herself just outside.

"You know, Blair, now that I think about it, I actually came across that same kind of attitude in Mrs. Garrett that you did when she lectured you about your mother," Jo told her, which again, was _really_ a double shock to Mrs. Garrett's system. Now, she was really, _really_ beginning to get worried that having prejudice in her heart against young people was a true problem for her. "It was when I won that Best New Student Award last year," Jo continued. "Charlie wrote a letter to me from prison and it was opened by mistake, so Mrs. Garrett knew that he wasn't really in Miami like I'd told you guys. We got to talking about how he'd abandoned me when I was twelve, and you know what she said to me? She said, 'It sounds like your father made many mistakes.' She called _abandoning me_ 'a mistake.' _A mistake!_ Like putting down the wrong answer on a pop quiz in class or forgetting to put the raisins in the oatmeal at breakfast-time. _Abandoning your child_ is _not_ a mere 'mistake.' _It's an act of evil._ It's one of the most _evil_ things a parent could _possibly_ do to a child, and she just brushes it off as if it's no big deal, calling it ' _a mistake_ '! Abandoning your child is in fact a silent form of abuse. It sends the most damaging, most abusive message possible to your child: _I don't love you enough to be here._ I grew up hearing that silent message from Charlie for _years._ "

Again, Mrs. Garrett felt that invisible dagger in her heart as she was forced to _really_ think about what Jo had said. Naturally, the _last_ thing she'd meant to say to Jo was that her father's abandonment of her was no big deal, but again, the girls _were_ right and _did_ have a very real point. Mrs. Garrett _was_ wrong, _horribly_ wrong, to refer to Charlie Polniaczeck's abandonment of Jo as a mere "mistake." She really _should_ have been more respectful and sensitive to the kind of emotional agony that had caused Jo. Jo _was_ right. Abandoning your child was _not_ just a "mistake" like putting down the wrong answer on a quiz in class. It _was_ a purely _evil_ thing to do, and it _was_ a silent form of abuse, and Mrs. Garrett knew she _should_ have been far more respectful of that.

As Mrs. Garrett thought about it in that moment, she _also_ remembered what she had said to Charlie Polniaczeck as he'd been on his way out the door the night Jo was receiving the Best New Student Award. She had tried to convince him to stay, and had succeeded, but she'd _also_ said to him, "I know you've been through a lot and Jo's giving you a rough time." Those words _really_ rang inside Edna Garrett's head as she took time to truly analyze them, and to put it mildly, they now bit her in the rear. _I know you've been through a lot and Jo's giving you a rough time._ She'd practically made it sound as though Charlie _deserved sympathy_ , and as though _Jo was in the wrong_ for being hurt and angry. She was really _sick_ at herself for her words now, both to Charlie _and_ to Jo. It was not _Charlie_ who'd been through a lot. _It was Jo who had been through a lot!_ And again, as an adult, she had _not_ been very respectful of that. She in fact had _not_ been very respectful of Jo's feelings, or of _Jo at all_ through that whole process because she'd been in such a rush to get them back together and have the nice, sweet little happy ending that she hadn't stopped to say what Jo had _really_ needed to hear from her, which was, "Jo, what your father did to you was inexcusable and it was awful _and it was wrong._ And you _never_ deserved that. _He had no right to cause you so much pain_." She'd practically behaved the same way when Blair's mother hurt her as well. _Blair_ was the one who'd been done wrong by Monica, but it had _not_ been _Monica_ who'd gotten lectured. Blair had, and _why? Because she was a young person._ _No wonder_ her girls felt she'd harbored prejudice in her heart against them because they were young. In some ways, _she actually had!_

"My parents have been sending me that message for years, too," Blair said to Jo. "They've been sending me that silent message ever since they shipped me off to Eastland when I was twelve. Well, really, since even long before _that._ Don't get me wrong. I do love it here, but it still really hurts that my mom and dad are always traveling all over the world and only spend a few weeks out of the entire year with me, _if that_. I do believe my parents love me; they just don't love me enough to be actively involved in my everyday life, which is painful."

Jo shook her head and told her, "Blair, if they don't love you enough to be actively involved in your everyday life, then they don't love you at all. I hate to break this to you, but Monica and David Warner love their careers and their money and their traveling _and themselves_ a whole lot more than they will ever love you."

Blair locked her eyes with Jo and said, "Tell me something I don't already know."

The invisible dagger in Mrs. Garrett's heart was only thrust even deeper into her the moment she heard Blair say that. It had always been the elephant in the room that Mrs. Garrett had never _really_ discussed with her girls the way _she knew_ she should have. Whenever her girls expressed hurt and anger about being sent away to a boarding school by their parents, she'd always shut them down with the lame excuse that their parents just wanted to give them a good education. However, Edna Garrett was _not_ a fool by any means and she knew perfectly well that that was just a load of bull; that their parents were _perfectly_ capable of giving them a good education by sending them to a private school closer to home, and that they _never_ had to send them all the way to Eastland, sacrificing their relationships with them in the process. _She knew_ their parents could see them and interact with them _every single day_ and _still_ give them a quality education, if they _really_ wanted to. And when it came to Jo, she honestly had believed in the beginning that Rose Polniaczeck had sent her to Eastland to get her away from all the gangs and danger in their neighborhood, although she knew differently now, of course. But regardless of the reason for sending the girls away from home, _she knew_ that true parenting could _not_ be done long-distance; that letters and phone calls didn't cut it by a longshot. She _also_ knew that her girls _had_ to feel hurt deep down at only being allowed to see their parents a few weeks out of the entire year – _at best_. But she'd shut them down with lame excuses anyway because it was just too painful for her to face the fact that her girls' parents simply didn't love them as much as she did, and she couldn't bear for her girls to have to face the awful truth that their own parents didn't love them enough to _really_ be involved in their lives.

After overhearing that conversation, though, she came to the painful realization that she _could not_ shut the girls down with lame excuses anymore. Blair and especially Jo were already painfully aware of how little their parents loved them, _if_ they even loved them _at all._ (And in fact, it was now agonizingly obvious that Jo's didn't.) She knew now that whenever her girls felt the need to express their hurt and anger, she simply _had_ to stop making excuses for their parents and _listen to them_ and _reassure them that their parents were wrong for hurting them._

"Yeah," Jo sighed. "I'm sorry, Blair. I really am. I understand how you feel."

"Thanks, Jo, but don't worry about me. It's okay. I'm used to it by now."

"I don't think I'll _ever_ get used to what Rose and Charlie did to me. But you know, _I did_ do a little something when I was in the Bronx to get a bit of my anger out of my system after that terrible conversation with Mrs. Peterson, and _boy_ did it _ever_ feel good!"

"What did you do?"

"I bought a can of spray paint and then I went to the cemetery and spray-painted the words 'Selfish Coward' on Charlie's grave."

"Oh, wow. How do you feel about doing that?"

"Perhaps I should feel guilty, desecrating someone's grave like that, but I don't. If anything, _I feel good_ about what I did! That _creep_ abandoned me while I was dying on that hospital bed in the ICU, and _that_ is the act of a selfish coward. The only thing I did was tell the truth about what kind of man he was."

"It's certainly an epithet that makes a statement."

"If Charlie Polniaczeck wanted the epithet on his grave to say something nice and gooey and sweet like 'Beloved Father,' then _he should have been a father, especially_ when I needed him the most."

"I agree."

"I've got to tell you, Blair, _it felt so good_ to tell the truth for the whole world to see. Mrs. Peterson may have tried to make excuses for Rose, but I won't, and I won't make excuses for Charlie or hide the truth about what he did; about what _they both_ did. Being a kid _does not_ diminish my worth as a human being and it _does not_ give them the right to treat me that way, even if they are my sperm donor and egg donor."

"Sperm donor and egg donor?"

"That's right. Charlie lost the title of 'Dad' when he left me in that ICU, and Rose lost the title of 'Mom' when she poisoned me. If a doctor murders his patients, he loses his title, doesn't he? Charlie murdered me inside when he left me at the point in my life where I needed him the most, and Rose may not have succeeded in murdering me, but she's just as guilty as Charlie is of murdering me on the inside, too. So they lose their titles."

Tears came to Mrs. Garrett's eyes in that moment. Even though it was wrong to desecrate someone's grave like that, not even someone as moral as Mrs. Garrett could blame Jo for what she did. And she also knew that Jo was absolutely right in what she said. Being young _did not_ diminish her worth as a human being, even though society far too often seemed to _scream_ otherwise, and being young _certainly_ never gave _anyone_ the right to do to her what the Polniaczecks did. And she knew perfectly well that just as parents got to dish out consequences to their children whenever their children did something wrong and got out of line, there should _also_ be consequences for _parents_ who wronged their children. And in Jo's case, Mrs. Garrett believed it was quite fitting for Mr. and Mrs. Polniaczeck to have their parental titles revoked in light of the _hell_ they'd put Jo through. It just ripped her apart inside, knowing that Jo was still suffering _so much._

Mrs. Garrett put the clean towels and washcloths in the bathroom then, and afterwards, she locked herself in her room and had a good cry.

The following afternoon once classes were over for the day, Mrs. Garrett had Jo and Blair meet with her in her room.

"Girls, I have something important that I need to say to both of you," she told them in a deep, serious voice and not her usual quivering one.

"What is it, Mrs. Garrett?" asked Blair.

"What's up, Mrs. G.? You're looking very serious," Jo commented.

"What I have to say to you girls _is_ serious," she said to them in the same low tone of voice. "I was carrying some fresh towels to the bathroom yesterday, and on my way there, I got sidetracked. I…even though I knew it was wrong, I started overhearing your conversation yesterday, and rather than put the darned towels away and go back downstairs like _I should_ have done, I listened in on your discussion." Jo and Blair turned and looked at each other in shock. They couldn't believe _Mrs. Garrett_ of _all_ people would do something like that. "I hope you girls can forgive me."

"We're dead," said Jo.

"No, you're not, Jo. You girls _are not_ in any trouble. As a matter of fact, I think it's the other way around. This time, I think _I'm_ actually the one in trouble with _you_ , in a manner of speaking, anyway."

"Wait a minute, Mrs. Garrett. Just _how much_ of our conversation _did_ you overhear yesterday?" Blair asked.

Mrs. Garrett took a deep breath and answered, "All of it."

"You're right, Jo! _We are_ dead!"

" _No_ , girls, _you're not_ ," Mrs. Garrett insisted. " _Believe me_ , you're not. I'm not at all angry at either one of you. And believe it or not, even though I know I shouldn't have done it, in a way, I'm actually quite glad that I overheard that conversation. You girls made me aware of something going on inside my heart that I had no idea was there. You were both right. There _have_ been times when I've displayed an unfair, prejudicial attitude towards you because you're young."

In that moment, she turned to face Blair, walked closer to her, and said, "Blair, _I never_ meant to send you the message that it was okay or acceptable for your mother to hit you, and I _certainly_ never meant to send you the message that it wasn't a big deal for her to hurt you inside the way that she did, just because you're young. You're absolutely right. _It was wrong_ of her to plan a romantic evening with a married man, and it was _especially_ wrong of her to not even _consider_ what kind of consequences that would have for you. You could have had the whole school gossiping about you because of what your mother did, and on top of that, she _was not_ setting a very good example for you the way a mother should. You were _right_ to be so hurt and so angry, and I'm very sorry I didn't tell you that. I never meant to send you the message that it was okay for your mother to cause you so much pain like that just because you're young, and I'm so sorry I did."

Blair's face really softened when Mrs. Garrett told her that. She loved Mrs. Garrett very much. She had, in fact, been a million times the mother to her that Monica Warner ever was. Deep down, she had always been hurt by the way Mrs. Garrett had handled that whole situation with her mother a couple of years ago, but she'd been convinced she wouldn't understand, so she hadn't even tried to discuss it with her. It had just remained buried. But that was the beautiful thing about Mrs. Garrett. Whenever she realized that she'd been in the wrong about something, and _especially_ whenever she came to the realization that she'd caused another person pain, she _immediately_ took responsibility for it and admitted her mistake, unlike _so_ many people in the world. And that was one of the _many_ reasons why Blair and _all_ the girls adored Mrs. Garrett the way they did.

Blair gave Mrs. Garrett a big hug then and said, "Thank you for telling me that, Mrs. Garrett. I know you never meant to hurt me." After a pause, she told Mrs. Garrett and Jo a moment later, "I think I'll go now. I get the feeling that you two need to talk alone."

"Thank you, Blair," said Mrs. Garrett, and then Blair walked out the door.

Jo folded her arms in that moment and said, "I guess I'm in for it for the spray paint."

Mrs. Garrett's eyes locked with hers, and then she shook her head and responded, "Not at all, Jo. I don't entirely agree with what you did. That's true. _But I do_ understand _why_ you did it, and frankly, I'm actually relieved."

" _Relieved?_ I spray-paint the words 'Selfish Coward' on my father's grave and you're… _relieved?_ "

"Yes. Jo, I've been very worried about you these past few months. You have been through _so much_ , and you've just shut down inside, unable to start facing all the pain, and there's no way you can work through everything and move on with your life if you don't face it. You may not realize it, but when you spray-painted Mr. Polniaczeck's grave, you actually did something very important."

"What's that?"

"You began to face your pain and your anger, and you began to express it, and I'm very relieved that you did. Jo, when this entire disaster happened to you, you lost so much. In a way, you lost not just _one_ but _both_ parents, _and_ the belief you'd clung to throughout your childhood that they loved you when in fact…well, I don't think either one of them were ever _truly_ capable of loving."

"You can say that again," Jo said quietly.

"And that's a truly astounding loss for _anyone_ to go through, but _especially_ for someone your age. And on top of that, this whole thing has also taken a great toll on you physically. That's why I've been reluctant to try to get you to start talking about it before, but now, I think you're ready. You already made a start yesterday when you began opening up to Blair the way you did, and I want you to know how proud I am of you. It takes a great deal of courage to begin facing something this painful."

"Thank you."

"It's true. And _I_ also want to thank _you_ for what you said yesterday. You made me realize something very important. You were right, Jo, about everything you said to Blair. I should have been _far_ more respectful of your feelings than I was last year when the truth about Mr. Polniaczeck started coming out. _I should not_ have called what he put you through at age twelve a 'mistake.' You were right. By abandoning you, he did something _so much worse_ besides making a mere 'mistake' like putting down the wrong answer on a pop quiz. _I do realize_ that _it is_ an evil thing to do to abandon your child, and _I never_ meant to make light of it, Jo. You were absolutely right when you said that abandonment is actually a silent form of abuse in that it sends the abandoned child the message, 'I don't love you enough to be here.' That is a _very_ abusive message for a child to grow up with. I should have been _far_ more respectful of the kind of immense pain that he caused you."

"Well, you were just being a fellow parent," Jo said with a real hint of sarcasm, and it wasn't exactly _hard_ for Mrs. Garrett to miss the flash of anger in her eyes in that moment.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that it's the way the world works. Whenever there's a rift between a parent and a kid, ninety-nine point nine percent of the time, another parent _will not_ side with the kid, but with the parent, _regardless_ of how much pain the kid's been in for most of her life. Maybe that's one of the reasons why prejudice against young people is so widely tolerated and condoned in this world, because most of human society is run by parents, and parents almost _never_ side with kids, even when the kid is right. Maybe that's why there's so many Mrs. Petersons out there in this world who think of kids as lesser lifeforms and second-class citizens."

Mrs. Garrett looked into Jo's eyes in that instant and told her, "I know I've made some mistakes, Jo. I've thought long and hard about the way I reacted, both with you and with Mr. Polniaczeck last year, and I realize it now that I _did_ act as though what he put you through was no big deal, and I'm sorry, Jo. I can't even _begin_ to tell you how sorry I am. I made a terrible mistake last year. I know that now. Now, I know that it would probably have been far better for you had you never gotten back together with Mr. Polniaczeck in the first place. But I want you to know what was going on in my heart, Jo.

"I realize it now that after something as damaging as abandonment, you cannot just throw an estranged parent and child back together again at the drop of a hat; that it takes time, _years_ even; that the parent has to do a lot of work and that a lot of healing has to take place. I understand now what a profoundly deep wound that is, and like I said, _I never_ meant to make light of it. It's just that it broke my heart so to see you without a father in your life, and I wanted to remedy that just as soon as possible. I wanted you two back together, and I just wanted the happy ending for you so much that I rushed things between you. I pushed you both too hard, too fast, into getting back together again and in doing so, I ended up being very disrespectful to you and sending you a hurtful message I never meant to send. Jo, _I never_ believed that what Mr. Polniaczeck put you through was not a big deal, and again, I am _so_ sorry I made you think that that was how I felt. It was also a huge mistake to try to throw you two back together again so quickly because I know it now that Mr. Polniaczeck didn't have the kind of character it took to be a worthy father to you; the kind of father you _deserved_.

"But anyway, I simply cannot stress this enough, Jo. _I never_ tried to get you and your father back together so quickly because I didn't respect you or because I didn't care about the kind of pain he caused you, and I _certainly_ never did it because I was trying to take his side over yours. Whenever there's a rift between two people, I usually prefer not to take sides, but I _do_ realize the fact that there _are_ times when it's _necessary_ to take sides. Whenever there's physical _or_ emotional abuse involved, that's one of those times. You were absolutely right when you said that abandonment is one of the worst forms of emotional abuse there is, and I understand it now that by trying to throw you back together with your father as quickly as I did, it really was almost as if I was trying to sweep what he did to you under the rug. There's no excuse for that. And I want you to know that once the adoption papers are signed this Christmas and I become your parent – even if in name only – _I will never_ be against you, Jo. There are times when parents and children aren't always on the same side, and I realize that, but not _all_ parents in the world are like Mr. and Mrs. Polniaczeck. There _are_ a lot of good, loving parents out there who would give their lives for their children, and _those_ parents are _always_ on their children's side, Jo, even when they're at odds with each other. Even when their kids get angry at them or vice versa, the good parents, _the real parents_ of the world, would still do _anything_ to protect and look out for their kids. Sure, you and I will have times when we don't agree with each other and get aggravated and even a little mad at each other. That's life. But I want you to know, Jo, that no matter what, _I am always on your side. I will never_ make excuses for the kind of hell the Polniaczecks have put you through, and _I will never_ act as though it wasn't a big deal, just because you're young. _I will never_ disrespect you because you're young, and I will _definitely_ never try to tell you that what Mrs. Polniaczeck did to you was your fault. The way Mrs. Peterson treated you was utterly appalling, and _I will never treat you like that._ "

"Mrs. G.," Jo said quietly, and then she gave her a big hug, all the while fighting off her tears.


	9. Grieving

**Note to readers:** I am really sorry to have taken so long to update _Always on Your Side_. Some unexpected personal problems have come up, and on top of that, I've been a little sick lately as well, so I haven't been able to get much writing done lately. Hopefully, I'll be able to update more often from now on, though. And as always, thank you all so much for all the support! :) It is deeply appreciated.

 **Chapter 9: Grieving**

The day before Christmas, after Blair, Natalie, and Tootie had already left to spend their Christmas vacation with their families, Mrs. Garrett and Jo legally became mother and daughter. Once again, Blair came through for them with her family's attorneys and connections in the government and they were able to cut through all the red tape and get the adoption finalized at lightning speed. But sadly for Mrs. Garrett, neither one of her sons would be coming to Peekskill to spend the Christmas holidays with her and meet their new sister. Her younger son Alex, who now worked full-time as a carpenter, had met and really hit it off with a very wealthy man in L.A., and he'd hired Alex to build his new house for him several weeks ago. It was an extremely big, important project for Alex and if his employer was pleased with the work Alex did, he could earn a substantial amount of money and be recommended for other equally well-paying jobs, so he was staying put in California for the time being. And as usual, Mrs. Garrett's older son Raymond was spending Christmas with his wife's family in Maine, so Mrs. Garrett and Jo were simply staying together in Peekskill for Christmas that year, along with Howard.

And even though Mrs. Garrett was hurt that her sons weren't coming to see her and she did really miss them, unfortunately, it was a hurt she'd long since gotten used to. The sad fact of the matter was, they hadn't spent a Christmas, Thanksgiving, birthday, or any other kind of important event together in years. However, it was a big comfort to her now to have Jo and Howard around. Deep down, Mrs. Garrett had always thought of Jo and all her girls as the daughters she'd never had, and despite the fact that Jo only wanted them to be mother and daughter in name only, she couldn't help but feel the kind of love for her that a mother would feel for her child, so despite the fact that her sons weren't there, she did still have family with her throughout the Christmas and New Year holidays. It was quiet and uneventful for all three of them, but they still enjoyed each other's company a great deal.

About a week after the girls returned and classes resumed in January, just as things seemed to be getting somewhat back to normal for everyone and just as Jo seemed to be getting back on her feet again emotionally speaking, she took another unexpected punch to the stomach. Eddie called and broke up with her. As it turned out, he'd met another girl who lived near the base where he was stationed, and although he'd never meant for it to happen, he ended up getting really involved with her and now they had quite a thing for each other, so he'd decided to break things off with Jo. Eddie's new girlfriend wasn't the only reason he was ending things between him and Jo, though. Jo was going through so much, both physically and emotionally, and Eddie was simply too immature to be able to deal with all of it. Ever since he'd last seen her in the hospital, he'd really been too shaken up inside to be able to face her. He couldn't even handle watching Jo go through it on the sidelines, much less actually helping her to deal with the emotional aftermath of it all, although he never came right out and admitted that to Jo, of course. It was actually easier to simply tell her he'd found someone else, which was in fact the truth.

But even though Eddie was basically using his new girlfriend as an easy way out, there were no easy outs for Jo. Just as Jo's father had abandoned her and left _her_ to deal with the consequences of _his_ actions and clean up _his_ mess, this time, it was not Eddie but Jo who was left behind to deal with all the emotional pain. _Yet again_ , a person she'd been so convinced really loved her was abandoning her when things got tough. She'd really loved Eddie, and perhaps even more importantly, she'd really _trusted_ him. She'd always been able to count on him in the past. Now, it was beginning to seem more and more like she couldn't ever trust _anybody_ at all, period.

Had she been stronger and healthier, like she was in the past, she would have gotten angry and yelled at the people around her, and she probably would have run off to the gym to take out her aggressions on one of the punching bags there. But it was Sunday evening and it had been a while since her last round of dialysis, and with the excess fluid and toxins building up in her body, she wasn't feeling all that great. It was rather difficult to breathe, and she was tired and itching, and she simply didn't feel well at all. Because of that, all of her ordinary defenses were down and she couldn't hold back her tears the way she typically would have before. After her phone call from Eddie ended and she hung the phone back up, she knew she couldn't have stopped the tears now even if she'd wanted to, so she quickly went upstairs.

She had planned to just lock herself in the upstairs bathroom and cry it all out in private, but things didn't work out that way. Mrs. Garrett was coming down the hall just as Jo reached the top of the stairs, and of course, she couldn't help but notice all the tears streaming down Jo's face.

Mrs. Garrett and Jo met each other halfway, and then Mrs. Garrett put her hands on Jo's upper arms and kindly asked, "Jo, what is it? What's wrong?"

Jo tried to explain, but just as she opened her mouth to try to talk, she suddenly couldn't help but start sobbing. It was in that one moment that everything – _everything_ – that her "mother," her "father," and now Eddie had done to her really began hitting her for the first time. She'd already been in quite a lot of pain, naturally, but she'd simply been too numb from it all to really feel the full impact of it. Now, though, whether she liked it or not, she _was_ feeling the full impact of it, and it was _agonizing._ Now, suddenly, several excruciatingly painful truths were hitting her emotionally all at once: her own mother tried to kill her; her own father abandoned her when she was at her sickest and weakest in the ICU; her mother was in prison; her father was dead, and now, her boyfriend had just dumped her.

After watching Jo for a couple of moments, thankfully, it didn't take long for Mrs. Garrett to figure out what was happening. Mrs. Garrett wrapped her arms around Jo and held her close for a minute or two, and then she took Jo into her bedroom where she could have a little more privacy to just cry everything out of her system. She well remembered herself what she'd been like shortly after her own father had died. The pain and grief of it all suddenly hit her and overwhelmed her, and she'd spent two whole days crying. And Mrs. Garrett knew that what Jo had been through the past several months was even more agonizing and traumatizing than what she had gone through after losing her father. She'd known all along that this moment would come when Jo wouldn't be able to shut down her emotions any longer, and even though she was certainly worried about Jo, she was also relieved that it was finally happening. She knew Jo would never really be able to move on with her life until she faced her feelings and dealt with them first.

"Oh God, Mrs. Garrett, how could they do that to me?" Jo asked as she sobbed. "What did I do to deserve any of this?"

Again, Mrs. Garrett wrapped her arms around Jo and held her tight, and in that moment, she planted a firm kiss on Jo's cheek and told her, "Nothing, sweetheart. You've done _absolutely nothing_ to deserve what they've done to you. You are a beautiful, smart, incredible young woman and you deserved so much better from them than this. This was _not_ your fault. It was _their_ fault. You _always_ deserved to have parents who would love you, protect you, and take care of you, and it was _their_ fault that they chose to be so blind and selfish and cruel. You deserved so much more than this, Jo. You deserved so much better."

After hearing Mrs. Garrett say the very words she needed to hear, Jo clung to her even more tightly and continued to cry. After a few long moments, Mrs. Garrett led her to the bed where they sat down together, and she held Jo close and rocked her and just let her cry it all out of her system.

And just like it had been with Mrs. Garrett after her father's death, it also took Jo several days to get everything all cried out. Mrs. Garrett kept Jo in her room so she could have the privacy she needed, and she stayed with her as much as she could. Thankfully, Jo was able to get her emotions under control that Monday and Wednesday afternoon when Mrs. Garrett had to take her for her dialysis, but when they got back home and Jo was back in the privacy of Mrs. Garrett's room, the tears began again. Jo really didn't want the other girls to see her like that at first. More than anything, she didn't want their pity, but whenever Mrs. Garrett wasn't around, the girls did sneak into her room to see Jo, even though Mrs. Garrett had told them to give Jo some privacy. They knew they shouldn't have disobeyed Mrs. Garrett, but they were just so worried about Jo that they couldn't stay away. And Jo wasn't happy about it at first. It was wounding to her pride for the other girls to see her when she was at her worst, but the way they all stepped in and gave her so much love and concern was actually very healing for her. During those three and a half days, the girls actually grew closer than ever.

By that Thursday, Jo had finally gotten everything all cried out of her system and she was doing somewhat better, so Mrs. Garrett allowed her to return to her classes. She really hadn't been in any condition to attend her classes earlier that week, of course. But now, Jo was really beginning to feel and act a little bit more like her normal self, to everyone's relief.

That morning, Mrs. Garrett asked Jo to meet her in her room after classes were over so they could talk in private, so that afternoon, Jo went upstairs and knocked on her bedroom door.

"Come in," Mrs. Garrett said, and Jo opened the door and walked inside. "Hello, sweetheart," she said kindly, and then she gave Jo a big hug and kissed her cheek. And even though Jo wasn't usually a big fan of affectionate displays, she had to admit it deep down that she did find Mrs. Garrett's expressions of love towards her to be very comforting, especially now. "Come on over here and sit down with me."

"Alright, Mrs. G.," Jo told her, and then she and Mrs. Garrett sat down on the side of Mrs. Garrett's bed together.

"How are you feeling today?"

"I don't know. I, uh…I've definitely had days where I've felt a lot better. But then again, I'm not feeling as bad now as I was a few days ago, either, so I'm thankful for that."

"I understand. Just…be patient with yourself, Jo. I was the same way myself when my father died, and you've lost a lot more besides your father. When my own marriage came to an end, I needed to stop and take some time to grieve for the relationship I'd lost. And in the same way, you, too, have lost an important relationship in your life, and you need to allow yourself to grieve before you can move on, and it's not going to happen overnight. It's a tremendous loss, and you're not going to recover from it all at once. Dealing with grief really is a long process."

"Yeah, I hear what you're saying, Mrs. Garrett. I just…I just don't understand how they could do that to me, you know?"

Mrs. Garrett nodded and said, "I know, honey. To say the least, it is mind-boggling that two parents – if you can even call them that – could treat a gem like you the way they did."

"I know I am not the perfect daughter. I know I have my flaws and made my mistakes–"

" _Who doesn't?_ Jo, there is no such thing as a perfect daughter or a perfect parent. _We all_ have our flaws and make our share of mistakes, but nothing, _absolutely nothing_ , could ever excuse what Mr. and Mrs. Polniaczeck have put you through. _Nothing._ " It didn't go unnoticed by Jo in that moment that Mrs. Garrett said that nothing could ever excuse what _Mr. and Mrs. Polniaczeck_ had put her through, _not_ what her father and mother put her through. At one point during the past few days, Jo had told Mrs. Garrett how she felt about revoking Charlie's and Rose's parental titles, and she had agreed wholeheartedly and had been very respectful that, which Jo deeply appreciated.

"But, you know, I've been thinking about it a lot here lately, and I've realized that there were red flags in my relationship with Rose all along. All these years, I only allowed myself to see what I _wanted_ to see, but the truth is, I always sensed a lot of resentment from her. I think deep down, I knew it all along that she resented everything she ever had to do for me; every sacrifice she ever had to make for me. All through my childhood, I only allowed myself to look at the good things she did for me. I guess I didn't want to think about the bad because it was too painful.

"But I never will forget one night when I was eight years-old and Rose and Charlie were going at each other's throats as usual. They thought I was asleep in bed, but I was wide awake, and I heard every word they were saying. She just basically spat it all out that I was an accident; a mistake." When Jo told Mrs. Garrett that, Mrs. Garrett held her gaze with her loving eyes, and she put her hand on top of Jo's. Although it was hard, Mrs. Garrett managed to keep her emotions in check and just focus on listening to Jo, but inside, she was absolutely _furious_ at Rose Polniaczeck for calling Jo a "mistake." As a parent herself, nothing made her angrier than when a parent said that their child was an "accident" or a "mistake." "She never intended to get pregnant with me, Mrs. Garrett," Jo continued. "And she never wanted to marry Charlie. The whole thing was basically just a shotgun wedding. They only got married because Rose was pregnant with me. And I heard her yell at Charlie all night about how my very existence and her marriage to him ruined her whole life."

Mrs. Garrett squeezed Jo's hand, and then she shook her head and said, "That's absolutely awful, what you overheard that night, Jo. And not just awful. _Inexcusable._ There is no excuse whatsoever for a parent to say such cruel, mean-spirited things about their own child. God doesn't make mistakes, Jo. He created a beautiful, intelligent, talented, sensitive, _incredible_ young lady when He created you. God knew what He was doing when He put you in this world. As hurtful and terrible as things are in this world nowadays, we need more people like you.

"And as for the other things she said, _you are not to blame_ for the fact that Mr. and Mrs. Polniaczeck had a bad marriage. _They_ are responsible for the way they handled themselves in their marriage and the way it turned out, _not you_. And Mrs. Polniaczeck had _absolutely no right_ to blame you for the fact that her life didn't end up the way she wanted it to. _She_ was and is responsible for the choices she makes in her own life, Jo. Not you. Part of being an adult means you accept responsibility for your own life and your own decisions and you don't put the blame on anybody else and certainly not on your own child when the decisions you make don't turn out the way you wanted them to. And she _certainly_ had no right to harbor such resentment against you in her heart, either. If there was any resentment in Mrs. Polniaczeck's heart, it should have been directed towards Mrs. Polniaczeck, herself, because like I said, _she_ is responsible for her own choices. _None_ of the disappointment or unhappiness she experienced was ever your fault, Jo. She did all of that to herself by making unwise decisions."

Tears came to Jo's eyes then, and she quickly wiped them away, not wanting to start crying again. She'd already done so much crying already, and she was pretty tired of it. Mrs. Garrett put her hand on Jo's shoulder in that moment and asked, "What is it, Jo?"

Jo shook her head and said, "Nothing, Mrs. G. It's nothing."

"Come on. Tell me. What is it?"

"Remember when I was getting ready to leave after my first day working in the cafeteria?"

"Yes, I remember."

"Remember that big guilt trip you laid on me, the way you talked about Rose and all?"

As Mrs. Garrett thought back on it in that instant, she realized that she'd probably made a terrible mistake in saying the things she'd said to Jo. She'd joked about guilt being a terrific weapon and that it shouldn't be wasted, but as she thought about her words now, she deeply regretted them. She knew better than anyone as a parent herself that parenting wasn't _supposed_ to be a war and that true parenting wasn't about using "weapons" against children, and she knew now that Jo had probably been struggling with feelings of guilt already and that she had probably inadvertently made it even worse. She now thought really hard about how she'd gone on about how hard Mrs. Polniaczeck was working and how she'd managed to give Jo the very best by sending her to Eastland. She could just _kick_ herself now for saying all those things to Jo, now that she knew the whole truth of Mrs. Polniaczeck's relationship with Jo. Now, she knew that Mrs. Polniaczeck hadn't sent Jo to Eastland to get her away from gangs and danger, but because things had started to become difficult in her relationship with Jo and sending her to Eastland gave her a way to bail out rather than stick with it and be a mother to Jo and work things out with her. And she also knew it now that the _last_ thing Jo had needed was to be reminded of the sacrifices Mrs. Polniaczeck had made for her, because Rose Polniaczeck had probably _already_ done a good enough job of rubbing that into Jo every chance she got as it was.

"Oh Jo, I am _so sorry_ about those things I said to you," Mrs. Garrett told her lovingly. "Believe me, if I had known then everything that I know now, _I never_ would have said all that to you. I know now how hard you are on yourself; that you're really far _too_ hard on yourself most of the time, and I also know it now that Mrs. Polniaczeck _did not_ send you to Eastland for the right reasons. I realize it now that she was just bailing out because you two hit a bump in the road and things were starting to become difficult. _I never_ said what I did because I was trying to make excuses for Mrs. Polniaczeck, Jo. Her sending you here just so she could bail out when things got tough between you was wrong of her. _Terribly wrong._ And _I_ was also terribly wrong to lay that guilt trip on you. I just wanted to get you to stay, and like I said, I didn't realize how things _truly_ were between you and Mrs. Polniaczeck. She probably made you feel needlessly guilty many times as you were growing up, and if my guilt trip made it worse for you, _I am so sorry._ I hope you can forgive me."

More tears came to Jo's eyes as she said, "Yeah, your little guilt trip did make me feel worse, Mrs. G. I'm not going to lie. But I understood that you didn't know what was really going on between us. And you're right. Rose _did_ make me feel so guilty sometimes, just for merely _existing_. I always felt like my very existence just ruined Rose's life completely, and I always felt so terrible about that and I was always so determined to make it up to her. That's why I always worked so hard to do well at Eastland.

"But hearing what you said just now about how none of her unhappiness was ever my fault and how she was responsible for her own life and her own decisions…well, it felt really, really good to hear you say that."

"I'll keep right on saying it just as many times as you need to hear it, Jo," Mrs. Garrett said, and then she pulled Jo in her arms and gave her a big, long hug.

"Thank you, Mrs. Garrett," Jo said quietly, and then Mrs. Garrett kissed her cheek again just before the embrace ended.

"I'll say it all again, Jo. All the disappointment and unhappiness Mrs. Polniaczeck has experienced in her life was _her_ fault and _never_ yours. You _do not_ have _anything_ to feel guilty about where she's concerned. _She_ is responsible for her own choices, _not you._ And you most certainly _are not_ to blame for what she did to you. The way she poisoned you like that, Jo, was nothing but pure evil, and there is never _any_ excuse for it. _And you are not a mistake._ You are a _gift_ , Jo, _an extraordinary gift_ , and I can't thank the good Lord enough for you."

Again, tears came to Jo's eyes and Mrs. Garrett pulled her into her arms and held her for a good long while.

"Thank you, Mrs. Garrett," Jo said through her tears, and Mrs. Garrett responded by kissing the top of Jo's head, holding her close, and rocking her.


	10. The Real Deal

**Note to readers:** Again, I sincerely apologize for not updating in so long. Some unexpected things came up, and then last week, Doc Manager stopped working for me and for those of you who are lurkers and don't know, if Doc Manager doesn't work, then there's no way you can post new chapters to your stories. So anyhoo, that was a big reason for the hold up. Hopefully, I'll be able to post more frequently from now on. Thank you all very much for your support and your patience.

I also want to let you guys know that since several of you have been asking from the beginning, "How much more is poor Jo going to have to go through?" I have good news for you. This chapter is going to be a bit of a turning point for Jo. This is where I also start really tinkering around with the canon, primarily where the season 3 episode _Kids Can Be Cruel_ is concerned, and the character of Carl Price. I realize Carl was only in that one episode, but the kind, mature, decent, beautiful way he dealt with all the other girls' crap in that episode just makes me like him so much, and I can't help but want to work with him in my story. He's just such a great kid!

Finally, I want to say thank you for all the supportive reviews, and I just have to say to **Thundercatroar** that your last review was hilarious! It really made me laugh.

Anyway, now without further ado, here's the next chapter. I hope everyone enjoys!

 **Chapter 10: The Real Deal**

It was a chilly Saturday afternoon in March, and Jo and Carl were all bundled up in their heavy winter coats as they walked together through the park that day. Carl Price was a sophomore at Eastland's brother school, Bates Academy, and like Jo, he too was a really smart, sweet, and sensitive young person. Unfortunately, because of his bad complexion and ongoing struggle with acne, all the other boys at Bates stuck him with the nickname "Rocky Price." Because of his acne, most of the other kids at both Bates and Eastland either made fun of him, were downright rude to him, or just ignored him completely, but as would be expected, Jo was the exception to the rule. She was one of the few people from either school who made an effort to talk to him, spend time with him, and treat him like a human being, and that had always meant a very great deal to him. Carl had known all along about Jo's close relationship with Eddie, of course. Everyone from both Eastland and Bates had heard all about it when Jo nearly eloped with him the year before, and all along, he'd made sure to maintain a respectful distance. Whenever he talked with Jo or spent time with her in the past, it had only been as friends, nothing more. But now, ever since she and Eddie had broken up, Carl had allowed himself to fantasize quite a bit about declaring his love for Jo and them becoming a couple, even though he knew a beautiful, kind, intelligent, wonderful girl like Jo was really too good for someone like him. Despite the fact that he knew someone like Jo Garrett was way out of his league, though, he couldn't help but dream, especially now that she was officially on the market again.

However, unbeknownst to Carl, Jo had actually been having similar feelings towards him recently. Because most everybody else at Eastland and Bates was too silly and immature to really talk to Carl and get to know him, they never really understood or appreciated how intelligent he was the way Jo did. Jo would never allow herself to actually admit it in the past out of loyalty to Eddie, but the truth was, she always found it a real breath of fresh air to be able to talk to someone the way she could talk to Carl. He could understand and relate to her whenever she wanted to talk about all the new things she was learning in her classes at Eastland in a way Eddie never could, and about all other kinds of topics that really interested her that only seemed to go over Eddie's head. She also really loved it about him that he was so quiet, unassuming, and just basically kept to himself, although she knew a lot of that was because of the way he was treated by everyone. And now that things between Jo and Eddie ended several weeks before, she had to admit that she was beginning to have more and more moments where she found herself thinking about taking things farther in their relationship. Jo wasn't like all the other silly, immature, superficial little girls at Eastland who refused to take a second look at Carl just because of his acne. Jo only cared about what was going on with a guy inside, and inside, Carl Price was a smart, mature, sweet, beautiful person, and she knew that better than anyone.

But like Carl, she wasn't ready to admit her true feelings yet, either. Ordinarily, Jo was _not_ the kind of person who was afraid of expressing her true feelings. She let people know what she thought and she rarely hesitated to speak her mind. And had all hell not broken loose in her life with Charlie and Rose, Jo would not have hesitated to basically grab Carl and tell him he drove her out of her tree. But now, she was just beginning to get back on her feet emotionally speaking, and dealing with the possibility of rejection by Carl – or anyone – was really the last thing she needed at the moment.

"I'm glad we were able to see each other today, even if it was only just for a walk in the park," Carl told her, and Jo smiled.

"Yeah, me too," she agreed. "I hate it we didn't meet and have lunch somewhere, but with all the dietary restrictions I'm on, there's really not much point in even _trying_ to eat out anymore, although we could have gone somewhere and I could have watched you eat."

Carl shook his head and told her, "That wouldn't be a very nice thing to do to you. Besides, I wouldn't really be able to enjoy my food anyway, knowing that you were being left out."

Jo smiled, and also even blushed slightly, although she hoped and prayed Carl wouldn't notice. Suddenly, the urge to grab Carl and tell him he drove her out of her tree became about ten times stronger.

"That's really sweet of you, Carl," Jo said, and this time, Carl smiled in response. Then a moment later, she asked, "Hey listen, I know this is a change of subject, but how's your grandfather doing?" Carl's grandfather was a recently retired pastor who'd just suffered a heart attack several weeks before, and for a little while, Carl and the rest of his family weren't sure if he was going to pull through or not.

"Oh, he just came home from the hospital day before yesterday. Well, actually, he didn't go to _his_ home. Mom and Dad talked him into coming to stay with us for a while, so we can keep our eye on him," Carl explained. Unlike a lot of Eastland and Bates students, Carl actually lived at home with his parents, both of whom were doctors, and drove to school every day. "If we don't, he's going to be pushing himself too hard, doing all kinds of things he shouldn't be doing yet. After his first heart attack a couple of years ago, _two days_ after he came home from the hospital, Mom and Dad actually found him on top of the church roof, repairing it!"

Jo laughed, shook her head, and said, "Tough guy."

"The toughest."

"He's been in my prayers ever since he's been in the hospital again, but I don't know that he ever needed them, as tough as he is!" she joked.

"No, Jo, we _all_ need prayers. It was very kind of you to think of him, especially with everything you've been going through, and Mom told me how you came to visit him a few days ago, too. That was thoughtful of you."

"I'm certainly not a fan of hospitals, but I know what it feels like to be sick and be stuck in one."

"You're a very special person, Jo," Carl told her gently as he looked into her eyes, and now, the urge to grab him and let him know he drove her out of her tree became _a thousand times_ stronger!

"I'm not that big a deal," Jo said, blushing even more than she had been a few seconds ago.

"Well _I_ happen to think you are," Carl disagreed as Jo continued to blush.

The rest of their afternoon together went on just like that, with both of them too afraid to come right out and admit their feelings for one another. But at the same time, they couldn't possibly have enjoyed each other's company more, and when Carl returned to Bates and Jo returned to Eastland, they couldn't have been happier.

"Hey, Mrs. G.," Jo said as she came through the back kitchen door. Mrs. Garrett was sitting at the counter, polishing the silver, and Jo was in such a good mood, she actually walked up to her and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. After what Rose had put her through, she was still afraid of the idea of having a mom in her life and she still wasn't ready to call Mrs. Garrett "Mom," but way deep down in Jo's heart, there was a tiny part of her that really did see a mother every time she looked at Mrs. G., and that tiny part of her inside was beginning to grow bigger and bigger, whether she wanted for it to or not.

Mrs. Garrett laughed a bit in surprise at Jo's unexpected affection, and then she said cheerfully, "You're certainly happy."

"Yeah, I guess I am."

"You must've really had a nice time in the park."

"I did. How have you been today?"

"Terrific. Howard took me out for coffee a little while ago, and it's always fun spending time with him." The light that came into Mrs. Garrett's eyes as she said that told Jo that the time she spent with Howard was a lot more than mere "fun"; that she was really falling for him.

"That's great. I'm glad you had a good day, too."

"Mm-hmm. I did," Mrs. Garrett said as she finished polishing up the last piece of silver and set it down. "Well, now that that little chore is completed, I'm going to put the silver up, and then I'd like you to meet me in my room. I have a little something I need to discuss with you."

"Alright, Mrs. Garrett. See you upstairs," Jo responded.

A couple of minutes later, Jo and Mrs. Garrett were alone in her room, and Mrs. Garrett said as she motioned towards her bed, "Come on over here with me and sit down, Jo."

"Okay," she said, and then they sat down on the side of Mrs. Garrett's bed together. "What's this about?"

"I have something to tell you that I think you'll be very happy about. You know that you've never tolerated dialysis very well."

"Yeah, that's true."

"Well, your doctor and I discussed it a few months ago, and he and I both agree that it's probably best for you to have a kidney transplant."

"A transplant," Jo said, deep in thought. "Wow."

"With other organs, it often can take a long time for one to become available because they have to come from people who have died, and families don't always give their permission for their deceased loved ones to become organ donors. However, with kidneys, it's a bit easier because people have two kidneys, and a person only needs one kidney to survive, so a living person can be a kidney donor. And even though it is better for the donor to be biologically related to the recipient, a person who isn't a blood relative can also be a donor," Mrs. Garrett explained.

"Mrs. G., where exactly are you going with this?" Jo asked with an air of suspicion. She was beginning to get a good sense of what Mrs. Garrett leading up to, and she didn't like it one bit.

"A while back, I went through all the necessary physical and psychological testing, and I qualify as a potential donor for you."

Jo instantly stood up the moment she heard Mrs. Garrett say that, and she took a couple of steps away and just stared off in the opposite direction, her back turned to Mrs. Garrett, for several long moments. Jo's whole body stiffened at what Mrs. Garrett had just told her. Even though she was hardly the kind of person who got scared easily, now, she was absolutely _terrified._ She'd known for a little while now that she would eventually have to have this conversation with Mrs. Garrett, but she had _not_ been looking forward to it.

Mrs. Garrett got up then, walked up to Jo, lovingly put her hand on her shoulder and asked, "What is it, Jo? What's wrong?"

After another long moment passed, Jo turned around to face Mrs. Garrett and answered, "I can't go through with something like that, Mrs. G. You know I really, _really_ appreciate the offer, but there is _no way_ I could do something like that."

"Why, Jo? Why do you feel that way?"

"I don't want to talk about this."

"I can see that. I can see that the thought of this whole thing deeply troubles you, and I know we don't always like to talk about the things that really upset us and get them out in the open, but sometimes we have to. Jo, please, talk to me. Why don't you want to go through with this?"

For the next few moments, Jo visibly fought off tears before finally replying, " _It scares me_ , alright?"

"Why does it scare you?"

After another uncomfortable few seconds, Jo vaguely replied, "A number of reasons."

"Tell me one," Mrs. Garrett persisted, despite the fact that it couldn't have been more obvious from Jo's body language and facial expressions that she _desperately_ wanted her to drop it.

"Organ transplants don't always work. Sometimes, the recipient's body rejects the organ. What if my body rejected your kidney? Then you would have given up a body part for nothing," she said hesitantly, although Mrs. Garrett could see it quite plainly that Jo was just giving her an excuse and _not_ telling her the _real_ reason why the whole idea made her so afraid.

"Believe me, I'm perfectly aware of all the risks I would be taking. I'm a registered nurse, so I know exactly what I'd be getting into, and trust me when I tell you, Jo, that _I want to do this._ "

"Yeah, sure, you say that now. But what happens when, months from now, you get the staggering hospital bills for this procedure that your insurance wouldn't cover because the insurance company says it's an elective procedure?! What happens when you end up completely broke and thousands of dollars in debt because of me?! What happens if on top of that, my body doesn't even accept your kidney, and you're stuck with a sick kid and a mountain of debt you can't pay off, minus a body part?! How long will it take you then to turn your back on me and start resenting my very existence the way Rose did?!" Jo said aloud with sudden tears streaming down her face.

Following a couple of silent moments from Mrs. Garrett, she knowingly asked, "How did you know that my health insurance only considers this an elective procedure?"

"Because I accidentally overheard you talking to your son Raymond about it over the telephone last month. I know what something like this would do to you financially, Mrs. G. I also know that between paying for all the testing you had to have done to make sure you were a suitable donor and paying for everything else here at Eastland that my scholarship doesn't, your savings account is virtually wiped out."

In that next moment, even more tears came to Jo's eyes as she told Mrs. Garrett, "Rose lost everything when she got pregnant with me. She lost all her dreams of going to college and eventually making a better life for herself because she had to get married at age eighteen, right out of high school, and take a job as a cocktail waitress that she hated in order to help provide for herself and me. Because of me, she had to give up her dreams and marry a man she wasn't in love with, and for all these years, she's been miserable. I mean, I know what you keep telling me, that Rose is responsible for her own choices that she made in her life and that it's not my fault, and on one level, I know that you're right. But it's _so hard_ for the rest of me to believe that sometimes because she made me feel so terrible about myself for so many years. Subconsciously, she stuck me with so much guilt all the time.

"And now I see the same thing happening to you. Before you became my foster parent and then my adoptive mother, you had plenty of money in your savings account. Now it's wiped out, and you're even looking into going into debt because of me and talking about having an operation and giving up an organ and taking risks with your own health. Something could go wrong for you on that operating table, you know. There could be complications for you. And on top of that, something could go wrong with your one remaining kidney later on in your life and you'd really need the one you gave up to me. That would really leave you in a terrible bind, and it would be all my fault. And if that happened, it wouldn't be something I could live with. I really, _really_ appreciate the offer, Mrs. Garrett, but the truth is, I just can't stand having another mother making all these humongous sacrifices for me. Going through all of that once before with Rose was enough."

Mrs. Garrett shook her head, and then she grabbed a tissue and tenderly wiped away Jo's tears and said to her, "Jo, we've both agreed plenty of times in the past that while Rose Polniaczeck did donate an egg to you and give birth to you, inside, she was _never_ a real mother to you. Real mothers _don't_ resent their children for having to do things for them and put them ahead of themselves. _Real love_ doesn't resent having to put one person's needs before your own. The things I do for you, like paying for you to stay here at Eastland with the girls and me where you belong, are _never_ things that I've resented for a single instant, and I never will. Nobody twisted my arm into adopting you and taking responsibility for your education and your well-being, Jo. I did that on my own, because _I wanted to do it. I want_ to continue to send you to school here at Eastland, and _I want_ to do everything – _absolutely everything_ – within my power to help you get as much of your former health and strength back as possible. I understand that it's hard, _tremendously hard_ , for you to trust again after what Mrs. Polniaczeck did to you, but please, _please_ , try to realize that _I am not Mrs. Polniaczeck._ I'm perfectly aware of the fact that financially speaking, it's going to be very difficult, but let _me_ worry about dealing with that. Just trust me, Jo, even though it's hard. Please."

After yet another long silence, Jo finally replied, "I'm sorry, Mrs. Garrett. I know it in my head that if there's anybody in the world I can trust, it's you, but my heart simply needs more time. I'm not ready for something like this. Not yet."

Mrs. Garrett gave an understanding nod then and said, "It's okay, Jo. I understand. Take your time with this. Take all the time you need. Just know that whenever you're ready, all you have to do is say the word."

Once again, Jo fought off tears as she said, "I love you, Mrs. Garrett."

Mrs. Garrett kissed Jo's cheek then and gave her the warmest hug and told her, "I love you, too, Jo. I love you so much."

As they embraced, Jo thought to herself that _nothing_ had _ever_ been like this with Rose. While Rose had done things for Jo, and even given her hugs and told her that she loved her in the past, there had always been the absence of respect. Rose had never really _respected_ Jo's feelings, opinions, or wishes the way Mrs. Garrett was doing now, and as she was in Mrs. Garrett's arms, she realized that what Rose had given her was merely a poor imitation of real love. Mrs. Garrett was the real deal.


	11. Callings

**Note to readers:** Just want to let everybody know that in this chapter, I tinker around with the canon again, this time with the episode _Front Page_. I was never very happy with the way they handled things in that episode, and yes, while Jo did make some mistakes, I think the bigger responsibility lies with Mr. Gideon (as he himself admits that he should have left that cocaine party the minute he realized what was going on.) I also think he never had any business being a teacher because he didn't know how to respect his students. You guys may agree or disagree with me, but it's just personally how I feel. So anyway, in this chapter, things turn out differently with him than they did in the canon, and Jo is treated with the respect I think she deserves. So anyway, here it is. I hope you guys enjoy.

 **Chapter 11: Callings**

A couple of weeks later, Jo met Carl at the Eastland library for a study date. It was a Tuesday afternoon, and while they were working on their homework together, they got to talking about what had been going on in their lives recently.

"Grandpa's been doing a lot better," Carl told Jo.

"That's great, although I'm really not surprised. He's a pretty tough guy."

"He sure is. You know, he did all sorts of things before he eventually became a pastor. He was in the military for much of his life, and he was also a cop for many years, so I guess that explains why he's so tough."

"Yeah, it probably does. You must be really proud of him."

"Of course. I just hope he feels the same way about me. I know how much he loves my mom and I know how proud he is to have a doctor in the family, but I think a small part of him was always disappointed that he never had a son to follow in his footsteps in some form or fashion. Now that he has me, I think he really has his heart set on me joining the military or the police force or becoming a minister. I know that one of these days, I'm simply going to have to tell him, 'Look, Grandpa, I don't want to do any of those things. I love art, and I want to teach art history someday.' I don't think he's going to be all that pleased or impressed."

"I've met your grandpa, Carl, and I know he really loves you and I know he's proud of you. And besides, there's absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to be a teacher. Sometimes, I actually find myself thinking that I'd like to do something like that myself someday."

"You? A teacher? I always assumed you'd go on to become a race car driver."

Jo laughed and smiled and said, "Yeah, I know that's what a lot of people think I'll be after I graduate from Eastland. But the truth is, I actually _do_ care about more things in life besides just bikes and cars and racing. Leaving my old neighborhood…coming here to Eastland, learning all the things I've learned…it's broadened my horizons more than I ever could have dreamed possible. And so many of the teachers here are so great. They care so much, and it's like they're always cheering for me to do well and learn more, with the exception of my journalism teacher, Mr. Gideon, that is. But in spite of him, being at Eastland has really changed my life. I think sometimes that I'd really like to teach here after I've graduated from college and give a little something back to this place; to all the people who have touched me and inspired me to learn and to grow, as corny as that probably sounds."

"I don't think it sounds corny at all. I think it sounds beautiful."

"Thanks. I'd really like to make the same kind of difference in some young kid's life someday that everybody at Eastland has made in mine."

"Wow, Jo. It sounds like you've really got a calling."

"I never really thought about it like that before, but…yeah, I guess you could call it that."

"I feel the same way about studying art. I have a real passion for it. Unfortunately, I'm not that much of a painter myself, even though I love studying about all the great artists like Dali and Picasso and Monet, so I have my heart set on teaching art history someday."

"That's terrific. I don't know what I'll end up teaching. I love my courses, so it's going to be pretty hard for me to pick just one subject to focus on. However, I think I'm leaning a little bit towards teaching English lit someday, or possibly journalism.

"But then again, the more time I spend in my journalism class with my teacher, Mr. Gideon, the more journalism makes me sick at my stomach. If it weren't for him, I'd be in love with journalism all the time, but whenever I'm in his class, the way he just constantly criticizes everything I ever do just kills my love for journalism. He just _ruins_ it for me. No matter how hard I try; no matter how much effort I put in, it just never, ever pleases him. It's never good enough. Up until now, I've been a straight-A student at Eastland, but all Gideon ever gives me is Cs, and I put in more time, effort, and energy into his class than I do into all of my others combined. Ever since I've been at Eastland, I've been at the top of my class. I could lose that because I just can't ever get it right with Gideon no matter how hard I try.

"Boy, I'll tell you one thing, though. If there's any one thing in particular I actually _have_ learned from Gideon this year, it's how _not_ to treat your students. When I become a teacher here someday, I will _not_ ride my students all the time like he does with me, and I will _not_ give them nothing but constant criticism and just beat them down for their efforts every day. When I see I've got a student who's working as hard for me as I am for Gideon, I'm going to give her recognition for her hard work and treat her with respect. If I see areas in a student's work that need improvement, yeah, sure, I'll let her know, but I won't hurt her or disrespect her or put her down in front of the entire class the way Gideon does me."

"I think Gideon's problem is that teaching is really not a calling for him. Sure, he's had a great career in journalism in the past before he started teaching at Eastland, but just like doctors have to have a good bedside manner in order to be good doctors, teachers have to have…I don't know…I guess a good 'desk-side manner,' so to speak, in order to be good teachers. They have to know how to treat their students, and from what all you've told me about Mr. Gideon, he doesn't have a clue. I don't know the man personally, but I'm guessing that perhaps the reason for that is because inside, he's still got the mindset of a journalist and not the mindset of a teacher. Sometimes, people can change careers midstream and it works out, but I really do believe that there are certain careers, like being a doctor or a nurse or a pastor or a stay-at-home mom or a teacher, that a person really has to have a lifelong calling for. My grandpa went into the military when he was eighteen and then into law enforcement in his thirties, but neither of those careers was his true calling like being a minister was. And anyway, I don't think Mr. Gideon has any business being a teacher because he doesn't know how to respect his students, which is something that I personally believe would come second-nature to a person who is truly called to be a teacher. I've known you for over a year now, Jo, and I have _never_ seen a student work as hard as you do, and I think that if Mr. Gideon is honestly making you this miserable, even to the point where you start to hate journalism whenever you're around him, something's wrong with the guy and he's not doing his job well."

Jo laughed sadly to herself then and smiled and said, "You know, if I'd had to put up with Gideon last year before all this garbage happened with Charlie and Rose and I ended up in kidney failure, I probably would have gotten mad, gotten in his face and yelled, and maybe even popped him a time or two. As I'm sure you already know, I can really be hotheaded at times, and I do have a temper."

"Jo, what you have is a…fiery, spirited personality," Carl kidded with her, and then they both laughed together.

"But now, I don't have the strength or the energy to get all hotheaded and mad and get up in Gideon's face and let him have it with both barrels the way I would have before. So earlier this semester, I made up my mind that I would simply do the very best I could, and if he was still so determined to be a jerk and find problems with every little thing I ever did, then that's his problem. I'm not going to worry about it, _or him_ , anymore. If he's determined to be a creep, then he's determined to be a creep. And I'm not going to waste any of my limited energy worrying about creeps. I learned that lesson in spades already from dear old Charlie and Rose. If I end the semester with a C in his class, then I end it with C. Whatever."

"The only thing that matters is that you tried your best."

"I know."

"Don't think about Gideon now. You're all done with his class for the day. Just forget about him and relax."

"You're right. I know I need to. So anyway, why don't you and I get back on this homework, huh?"

"Right," Carl agreed. "I could really use some help with my calculus. That one course is killing me."

"I may not be any good at journalism according to Mr. Gideon, but thankfully, I'm still good at math. I'm pretty sure I can help you out."

"I don't doubt it. You really saved my life with that big calculus test I had last week."

Jo very nearly blushed as she smiled again and told him, "I'm glad I was such a big help."

Carl returned the smile and said, "You always are." Then in the next moment, they hit the books again.

Jo remained in the library with Carl for the next hour, talking and studying with him, and during that time, while Blair, Natalie, and Tootie were hanging out together in the lounge playing cards, Mrs. Garrett was upstairs in her room, on the phone with her son Raymond.

"Mom, I've got some really wonderful news," Raymond told her.

"I'm finally going to be a grandma?" Mrs. Garrett said hopefully, and Raymond laughed.

"Not quite, Mom. No, I've gotten all your issues with your health insurance taken care of. You know with my position as an accountant, I've got a lot of important contacts in the business world."

"Yes, I know," Mrs. Garrett said with pride. She really was so proud of her oldest child.

"Well anyway, to make a long story short, I managed to pull some strings with your insurance company and whenever you and Jo go through with the transplant, they're going to pay for the procedure."

"Oh Raymond, that's _wonderful!_ Oh, you're just terrific!"

"Yeah, well, I figure with everything Jo's been through, it's the least I can do. She deserves a helping hand."

"You're absolutely right. She does. If only I can get her to _accept_ my help."

"Have you talked to her about the transplant?"

"Yes, we talked about it recently, and she feels too afraid to go through with it right now. Mrs. Polniaczeck resented practically everything she ever had to do for Jo, and now, Jo can't help but feel frightened that if something goes wrong with the operation, I'll come to resent her the way Mrs. Polniaczeck always did."

"I won't lie, Mom. When you first told me about your plans to donate a kidney to Jo, I wasn't exactly thrilled with the idea. Jo is right, after all. Something could go wrong for you on the operating table. And, something could happen with your one remaining kidney sometime later in your life, and then you'd need the one you gave to Jo. However, I did a lot of research into it and spoke to a couple of doctors, and apparently, these operations happen a lot more often than I realized."

"People donate kidneys all the time, Raymond."

"Yeah, and on top of that, you really are the healthiest, strongest person I know. You'll probably live to be five hundred, so I know I don't have anything to worry about."

Mrs. Garrett laughed and said, "Of course you don't. I'm perfectly fine, and after the operation, I'm going to stay that way. That is, if I can ever convince Jo to trust me enough to let me go through with it."

"Of course you will, Mom. When it comes to parenting, you're the best; the very best. Just be patient with her. Give her a little time."

"I will. You're right. I know I have to be as understanding and patient as possible. It's just hard watching her struggle so. She's lost so much of her former strength and energy and… _fire._ She's still in so much pain inside because of what Mr. and Mrs. Polniaczeck have put her through. It all just hurts my heart so much. I want so badly to help Jo feel better again, both physically and emotionally, and I hate how helpless I feel right now."

"I know, Mom. I know. Hang in there. Just give Jo a little more time. She'll come around. I know she will. Healing from everything that Mr. and Mrs. Polniaczeck have done to her isn't something that can happen overnight, you know."

"I know."

"Remember that car wreck Alex and I were in a couple of weeks after he first got his license?"

"How could I forget? It gave me a heart attack!" Mrs. Garrett joked, and then they both laughed together for a moment.

"I know now I should never have let my little brother behind the wheel that day, but he wanted to drive so badly, and he just wouldn't let up so I gave in. Alex ended up with a broken rib and I had a broken leg."

"I remember. When Officer Davis showed up that day and told me you two were in an accident, my heart practically stopped!"

"Oh, you remember the officer's name?"

"I remember _everything_ about that day, Raymond."

"Well anyway, my point is, Alex's broken rib and my broken leg didn't heal all at once. And Jo's wounded spirit isn't going to heal all at once, either. It's going to take a while. But hang in there, because it _will_ happen."

"I know it will. Oh, thank you, son. Thank you so much for working things out with the insurance company, and for listening."

"What are sons for?" Raymond asked with a smile on the other end of the line. After a brief pause, he said, "Talk to you later, Mom."

"Talk to you later, Raymond. I love you."

"I love you too, Mom," he said kindly, and then they both hung up.

The next day came and went without anything major happening, although Jo and Natalie did have an assignment due for Mr. Gideon that Thursday, and they both worked hard on it and put the finishing touches on it. They asked Mrs. Garrett to look over their work and give her opinion, which she was happy to do. Mrs. Garrett had taken a good look at the list of Mr. Gideon's requirements for the assignment beforehand, and after reading through Jo's and Natalie's work, she was equally impressed with both of them. It was quite obvious that Jo and Natalie had each put a great deal of time and effort into their work, and she couldn't imagine either of them not getting a couple of A-pluses.

However, the following afternoon, Mrs. Garrett was really stunned to learn that Mr. Gideon had given Natalie a B-minus, and that he'd actually given Jo a _D_ for her hard work. Natalie was rather disappointed that she hadn't gotten the A she'd expected, but since she still got a fairly good grade, she bounced back rather quickly. Obviously though, it wasn't the same for Jo.

After Natalie delivered the bad news to Mrs. Garrett, who was sitting on the couch in the lounge, she and Tootie went to their room upstairs, where Blair was already busy preparing for a hot date with her latest conquest from Bates. A couple of moments after Natalie and Tootie left the lounge, Jo came walking in with a long face.

Mrs. Garrett instantly got up when she saw Jo come in, and she put her hands on Jo's upper arms and asked, "Jo, are you alright? Natalie just told me what happened in Mr. Gideon's class today."

Jo let out a defeated sigh, and after a long, quiet moment, shook her head. In that next moment, even though Mrs. Garrett knew Jo didn't ordinarily like big displays of affection, she could tell that this was one time her life when she _really_ needed a hug, so she pulled her into her arms and gave her a big, long one.

"I'm tired, Mrs. G.," Jo sighed while she was still in her embrace. "I am _so sick and tired_ of working so hard for nothing. And I'm also so tired of the rotten way Gideon always makes me feel."

The embrace ended then, and Mrs. Garrett asked, "How does he make you feel?"

"Like I'm the dumbest idiot to ever walk the face of the earth. And you know something, Mrs. G.? _I really do not need that_ ," Jo said as tears came to her eyes – which was the _last_ thing she wanted to happen. "Even though I know it in my head that what Charlie and Rose did to me was not my fault, having one parent try to kill you and the other parent abandon you while you're dying in the ICU has a way of making a person feel pretty worthless inside. And I _do not_ need creeps like Gideon making me feel even worse about myself than I already do. Mrs. Garrett, I need you to do me a favor now."

"I will if I can, sweetheart. You just name it."

"I hate to say this, but the truth is, right now, I need mush."

"Mush?"

"I need you to go all maternal and mushy on me. I need mush, okay?"

Mrs. Garrett's face really softened when Jo said that. She knew exactly what it was that Jo was asking for: tenderness, encouragement, compassion, and above all else, _love_ , and she also knew that for someone like Jo who always liked to act so tough, that was not easy for her. The following moment, Mrs. Garrett didn't hesitate to give Jo another big, long hug, and then she led her over to the couch and sat down with her and held her.

After several long, quiet moments, Mrs. Garrett lovingly kissed the top of Jo's head and told her, "Jo, I can't pretend to know how hard and painful it is to go through the kind of hell Mr. and Mrs. Polniaczeck have put you through. I can't sit here with you now and tell you that I understand because while I can certainly imagine what it might be like, I can never understand it completely. I can only imagine what something like that does to a person inside.

"But no matter what Mr. and Mrs. Polniaczeck have said and done to you and no matter what insensitive, criticizing people like Mr. Gideon may say to you, it doesn't matter because they're wrong. _You are not_ worthless or unworthy of love and respect, and _you are absolutely not a dumb idiot._ You are a beautiful, caring, brilliant, and absolutely _priceless_ young woman, and I consider it a great privilege to have you in my life. You are _wonderful_ , Jo, and I love you. I love you dearly, and I always have."

"Thanks, Mrs. G. You'll never know how much I needed that."

"Of course. All I did was tell the truth. And anyway, I think I'm long overdue for a parent-teacher conference with Mr. Gideon. This entire situation has gone on for far too long and it's really getting out of hand now, and I know it's not your fault. I've seen how hard you've been working in his class over the semester. You're trying so hard, and he's not meeting you halfway, and that isn't right. I think it's high time for me to sit down with him and have a long talk."

"Okay, but you'll probably be wasting your breath. I'm pretty convinced he has some kind of vendetta against me."

Mrs. Garrett shook her head and said, "No, Jo, I don't think so. He's been rather rough on Natalie all semester too, and a few other students as well, from what all I hear. He seems to be a bit of a hard taskmaster. I don't know, but I rather get the feeling that ever since he changed careers and came to Eastland, it's never really sunk in for him that he's in the _classroom_ now and not the _newsroom_. As a reporter, he had the luxury of being hard on all the people who worked under him in the newsroom because they were all adults. As a teacher, he needs to be more mindful of the feelings of his teenage students, and I think he's forgotten that."

"Maybe. But anyway, I really don't want to talk or even _think_ about Mr. Gideon anymore," Jo said, still in Mrs. Garrett's arms. "This whole mess has really made me tired."

"I understand, love. Why don't you go on upstairs and take a little nap?"

"Thanks. I think I will," Jo said as they stood up together. Then just before she left the lounge, she told Mrs. Garrett, "Thank you for all the mush, too. I really needed that today."

Mrs. Garrett smiled and said, "Anytime you need it, Jo, I'm here for you. I'm always here."

"Thank you," Jo said with a smile, and then she went upstairs to bed.

The next morning, when Mrs. Garrett was on her way to Mr. Gideon's office to schedule a parent-teacher conference with him, she ran into Mr. Parker in the hallway and got a pretty big surprise. When Mrs. Garrett told the headmaster that she was on her way to Mr. Gideon's office, he informed her that Mr. Gideon had just been fired.

" _Fired?_ " Mrs. Garrett said in shock. "Why in the world was Mr. Gideon fired?"

"Last night, he was arrested at a party because he was caught using cocaine. He's in jail now."

" _Cocaine?_ " she gasped, unable to believe her ears.

"It seems our prestigious journalism teacher was living somewhat of a double life. Over the past couple of months now, we've been receiving complaints from students and parents that students have been treated unfairly, and over the past few weeks, his performance as a teacher has really declined. He's been late for classes, constantly distracted, chewing students out. It seems he's had a drug problem for a while now. And after this, he can just forget about teaching, at Eastland or anywhere else."

"I hate to say it, but it's probably for the best that he won't be teaching anymore. Even if he didn't have a drug problem, from what all I've seen with the way he's treated Jo and other students, he was never really cut out to be a teacher. I don't think it was ever really a true calling for him. Of course students should respect their teachers, but that respect has to be a two-way street. Teachers have to know how to treat their students with respect as well, and he was always disrespectful and hurtful to Jo, and that's wrong."

"I used to be a teacher myself before I became a headmaster, and I couldn't agree more. You don't just rip students apart in front of everybody else in the entire class, and you don't constantly beat them down with criticism either. As a matter of fact, speaking of Jo, I think you'll be happy to know that I spent all last night looking over all the students' major assignments they turned in for Mr. Gideon throughout the semester, and I've come to the conclusion that when it comes to Jo and several other students, he really _was_ being unfair, and I've adjusted their grades accordingly. It's obvious Jo's put in a lot of hard work this semester, and her grades from here on out _will_ reflect that."

"That's wonderful, Mr. Parker. Thank you."

"Don't mention it."

"Perhaps Jo was right. Perhaps he really did have some kind of vendetta against her and a few other students. But _why?_ "

"As an educator, it's always been my experience that there are some teachers out there who make the mistake of being overly harsh on the students they see the biggest potential in, thinking that the harder they push them, the better they'll perform in the long run. But those kinds of teachers who are harsh on their students and forget to treat their students with kindness and respect always wind up just making their students and themselves miserable. It ends up being a real waste of both student and teacher potential."

"This may sound strange, but in a way, perhaps losing his career as a teacher will wind up being a blessing in disguise. Maybe it'll serve as a much needed wake-up call that he needs to get some help for his drug problem and make some big changes in the way he lives his life and treats other people."

"Maybe so. Maybe the good Lord's giving him an obvious hint and he'll be smart enough to take it. We can hope so."

"Yes, we can. In the meantime, who's going to be teaching the journalism class for the rest of the semester?"

"One of our substitute teachers, Miss Masterson, will be filling in until we can find another journalism teacher to take Mr. Gideon's place."

"Oh yes, I've met her a couple of times before. She's a really nice girl."

"Yes, she is. Well, if you'll excuse me, Mrs. Garrett, I have to get back to my office now."

"Of course. Have a good day, Mr. Parker."

"You too," he said as he left, and then Mrs. Garrett went back to the cafeteria.

Later on that Friday evening, after Jo was finished with her dialysis for the day and everyone had finished cleaning up after supper, Carl came over to Eastland and waited for Jo in the lounge.

After Jo shooed Blair, Natalie, and Tootie away and they had some privacy, Jo said, "Hey, Carl, it's great to see you. What are you doing here?"

"It's no big deal, Jo. I just wanted to check on you. I heard about that bad grade Mr. Gideon gave you yesterday and I wanted to see how you were doing. I know how hard you worked on that assignment."

"Haven't you heard?"

"Heard what?"

"About Mr. Gideon."

"What about Mr. Gideon?"

"He got arrested last night for doing cocaine. He's in jail now, and Mr. Parker's fired him."

" _Whoa!_ I had no idea! But then again, I guess being the class geek with a bad complexion automatically puts you out of the loop when it comes to our schools' grapevine. I'm always the last person to hear about stuff. So Mr. Gideon's actually _in jail now?_ You're being _serious?_ "

"Oh yeah, totally serious. Miss Masterson's going to be teaching our journalism class for a while until Mr. Parker finds a suitable replacement for Mr. Gideon."

"I don't even know what to say. Wow. Just… _wow._ "

"Exactly. I first heard about it in class this morning, and after all these hours, I'm _still_ in shock. Who would've guessed it that our former-reporter-and-correspondent-turned-journalism-teacher was actually using cocaine on the side?"

"Not me, that's for sure."

"You know Carl, if something like this would've happened last year, I would've really enjoyed old Gideon's academic downfall after the way he treated me. But now…I don't know…I almost halfway feel sorry for the jerk."

"Maybe…going through all the pain you've suffered this past year has…helped make you a little more compassionate and forgiving than you would have been in the past because you understand how it feels to have your life suddenly blow up in your face," Carl gently suggested.

"I guess," Jo said quietly. "And for the record, even though he is a mean-spirited creep, I do hope he'll get some help for his drug problem."

"That's a kind thing for you to say, especially after the way he's treated you all this time. You know, Jo, you like to pretend you're all hard and tough, but underneath, you have a very big, loving heart. That's why you're so special to me."

Carl's compliment made Jo blush, and in that moment, Carl simply couldn't stand it anymore, and he leaned in and kissed her, despite the fact that he expected her to reject him and push him away.

Not only did she _not_ reject him and push him away; she _returned_ the kiss, and proved she was a _great_ kisser!

When the long kiss finally ended, Jo looked into Carl's face and told him what she'd wanted to tell him for quite a while now: "Carl, you drive me out of my tree!"

Without further ado, they kissed once more…for a _very_ long time.


	12. Elephants

**Note to readers:** I am really sorry to have taken so long to update. A lot of unexpected problems have come up since I last updated _Always on Your Side_. I hope to be able to update more often. Thank you all for your support and your patience, and thank you to everyone who has faved, followed, or reviewed my story. I always appreciate the support.

 **Chapter 12: Elephants**

It was a lovely Saturday night in late April and Howard had taken Edna out to eat dinner at a very nice Italian restaurant in downtown Peekskill. Their time together was wonderful, as always. They talked and laughed with each other for the longest time as they waited for their food to be served. But then when Howard asked Edna how Jo and the girls were doing, things started to turn a little more serious.

"Blair, Natalie, and Tootie are doing fine. As for Jo, in some ways, she's doing better than she has been in a long time, and in other ways, she isn't doing well at all. She hasn't come right out and told me about it, but I'm fairly convinced that she's seeing someone. I've noticed some subtle changes in the way she behaves whenever her friend from Bates, Carl Price, is around. She smiles a lot more, and she gets this twinkle in her eyes that I've never really seen before, not even when she was around her old boyfriend Eddie. When she's with him, she's happier than I've seen her in ages. However, I know what a private person Jo is and I don't want to pry too much. I think it's better that I wait for Jo to come to me and tell me about it in _her_ time and on _her_ terms, whenever _she_ feels ready to discuss it with me."

"Yeah, you're probably right. Jo may be your daughter now, but that doesn't mean she automatically has to tell you every little thing about her personal life all at once. I think a young girl's parents should know about it when she starts seeing someone new. I think a teenage girl's parents have a right to know when their daughter has a new boyfriend in her life, but at the same time, there's no harm in waiting a little while for her to come to her parents to tell them about it on her own."

"No, there isn't."

"Anyway, you said that in some ways, Jo wasn't doing well. What's going on?"

"I think that physically speaking, she's getting worse. She's almost never feeling very well these days, and the dialysis simply doesn't help. I mean, it does clean her blood the way it should, but she still feels lightheaded and ill after it's over. I don't want to push Jo too hard about the kidney transplant. I told you all about everything that happened when she and I discussed it with each other a while back. She's very afraid to go through with it."

"Yes, I know."

"But at the same time, I'm afraid that if I _don't_ start pushing her to go through with the transplant, her health and well-being will continue to suffer."

"You know Edna, back when I was a young man, I was very, very foolish. You know that back when we were kids growing up, women were always expected to be housewives and stay-at-home mothers, and I _stupidly_ believed when I was a boy that women had it so easy." Edna knowingly laughed when he said that. "I believed that scrubbing a dish or mopping a floor or singing a lullaby every now and then was all there was to it when it came to being a wife and a mother. I thought that men were the ones who really had it tough because men had 'real' jobs. Then one day, my grandmother came along and set me straight. I was fourteen, and one day in the summer, I went and opened my big mouth _in front_ of my mother and my grandmother about how 'easy' I thought they had it. As it turned out, our next-door neighbor, who was also one of my mother's closest friends, had twin daughters who had just turned one, and my mother's friend and her husband had had to go out of town for a couple of weeks, and they'd left their little girls with my mother. Well, after I went and opened my big mouth, my grandmother came up with the great idea to put _me_ in charge of taking care of the twins and taking care of the house for the next couple of weeks that they'd be staying with us." The moment Howard told her that, Edna laughed out loud. "I learned over the course of those next two weeks just how difficult and complicated 'women's work' and motherhood could really be!"

Edna laughed again and cried out, "I'll bet you did!"

"I learned quite a lesson that summer when I was fourteen. And listening to you talking about everything you're going through with Jo now reminded me of it. Motherhood is one of life's great mysteries. There is _nothing_ simple or easy about it. It's an art and a science. I imagine it's difficult sometimes to know what to do, not just where Jo's concerned, but where _all_ your girls are concerned."

"It is. But a lot of it is really instinct. I've always seemed to have this God-given voice in my gut guiding me, telling me what to do and when. I don't always get it right. Sometimes I make mistakes. Sometimes I make _big_ mistakes, even, where the girls are concerned. But I always try my best, and I guess that's the important thing."

"Yes, it is. I couldn't agree more. If you don't mind a little unsolicited advice, though, I think you ought to keep trying to convince Jo to go through with the transplant. I don't believe kids mind it when you push them to do the things in life that are really best for them, and Jo knows it deep down how much she needs this kidney transplant."

"Yes, I know you're right. It's just that after all the hell she's been through, I want to try and be as respectful of Jo and her feelings as I possibly can be. It can't hurt to at least talk to her about it again, though."

"No, it can't hurt to give it another try."

"Thanks, Howard. You're always such a wonderful person to talk to about these things."

Howard kissed Edna's hand then and told her, "Well, you know I'm always here for you, Honey Bun."

"I know," Edna said with a smile, and then she laughed again, and when she started laughing, Howard laughed with her.

"What is it, Edna? What's so funny?" he asked.

"I was just thinking that a little bit of that fourteen-year-old boy came out that night that I told you the girls were going to be helping us in the kitchen. Do you remember that? Remember what you said?"

Howard continued to laugh, and then he responded, "Yes, I remember that night. How could I forget? I teased the girls when you told me that they'd be working with us, that a woman's place was in the kitchen, and they didn't realize it that I was only kidding around with them. _You_ knew I didn't mean anything by that, but the girls didn't, and they got offended. I thought it was really funny, though, when Natalie put me in my place, so to speak, and said I was a male chauvinist pig. I just love that girl's wit!"

"So do I. Natalie is always hilarious."

"But still, I didn't exactly get off on the right foot with the girls when I made that stupid crack. It was one of those embarrassing moments in life where I didn't _think_ before I spoke."

Edna chuckled and said, "It's alright, Howard. We all have moments like that every once in a while. And besides, now that the girls have really gotten to know you over the past year and a half, they know that you're not really a male chauvinist pig. You've become a good friend to them, and they know how much you care about them."

"I do. They're wonderful girls. There's no way you can't love 'em."

"Oh, I know. From time to time, I've actually had other adults come up to me and ask me, 'How on earth do you manage it?' And you know something? I just _hate_ that attitude. I hate it when people act like my decision to accept responsibility for the girls was this terrible, horrific sacrifice I had to make. I won't lie. It's not always easy being responsible for four teenage girls. I _never_ have any real privacy, and sometimes the girls really can drive me crazy. But still, I don't regret my decision for an instant, and I _don't_ see it as any kind of sacrifice. I love it. I love the craziness and the insanity. I love the talks, the spats, the jokes, the laughter, the tears, the hugs. I love the fun and the good times. I love working together to get through the hard times. _I love them._ And I love being there for them through these important years in their lives. The real truth of the matter is, had things not worked out the way they did with the girls living across the hall from me and had I been able to have all the privacy in the world, my life today would be pretty empty. I don't always allow myself to admit this because I want to be as respectful of the girls' relationships with their parents as humanly possible, but to be perfectly honest, I do see my girls as the daughters I never had. Sometimes it's really very hard for me to keep reminding myself that I'm not their mother."

"Bull!"

"Excuse me, Howard?"

"You heard me. I said bull! _You are_ their mother, Edna, and you know _perfectly well_ that you are. Let me ask you something. How often do you see your girls throughout the year?"

"Oh, well, during the school year, I see them every day."

"Exactly. How often do their 'parents' see them?"

"That depends. Natalie's parents see her every day throughout the summer and during Christmas vacation, and sometimes she goes home and spends the weekend with her parents. Blair's parents take her on vacations with them sometimes, and they see her during the summer, although I know her mother sees a lot more of her during the summer than her father does. Whenever Tootie's time at summer camp is over, her parents see her during the summer and at Christmas."

"That's my point. The girls' 'parents' are really more like casual acquaintances who get together with them a couple of times through the year. _You're_ the one who's with them day in and day out throughout the school year. _You're_ the one who knows them like the back of your own hand. _You're_ the one who's always there for them whenever they have a problem. _You're_ the one who takes care of these girls when they're sick and listens to them whenever they need someone to talk to while their 'parents' are only God knows where. _You're_ the only _real_ parent these girls have got. You just won't admit it."

Edna took in a deep breath and let out a long, sad sigh. Finally, she said, "I know, Howard. I know. You're right. I know it deep down that I'm the one doing their parents' jobs for them, and _I know_ how bad I've been in the past about making excuses for their parents never being there. _I know_ the girls' parents have essentially abandoned them by sending them to Eastland. _I know_ that they could have sent the girls to a private school closer to their homes and that they could still have been able to see their girls every day, had they _really_ wanted to. _I know_ what an unfair, selfish thing it was for them to do to just ship them off to Eastland and abandon _all_ their parental responsibilities, and _I know_ my girls deserve _so_ much better from them than that. _I know_ how wrong it is that _I_ spend so much more time with the girls than their own parents do. _I know_ that whenever I tell my girls that their parents just wanted to give them a good education, I'm simply making excuses for them – _pathetic excuses_ at that. It's the elephant in the room that I never allow myself to talk about or even think about because it's so painful. It hurts so much for me to acknowledge the fact that my girls' parents probably don't love and care about them as much as I do."

"I know, honey," Howard said with a sigh, and then he reached out and took her hand and gave it an affectionate squeeze. "I know. I know how much it hurts to admit the truth. I know."

"However, that time when I eavesdropped on that conversation between Jo and Blair, I realized that there really had been times when I'd been unfair to my girls in the past. I know it now that whenever they feel the need to come to me and vent about their hurt and anger towards their parents for never being there, I need to _stop_ making excuses for their parents and I need to listen to them and let them vent about it, no matter how hard or painful it is for me to face."

"As a guy, I've always felt it best to just keep my mouth shut and butt out whenever you ladies were dealing with personal issues in the past. But now that we're on the subject, I may as well go on and admit it that I've always noticed that whenever the girls are feeling hurt or angry at their parents for some reason and whenever they're having some kind of problem with their parents, the vast majority of the time, you seem to automatically take the attitude that the girls' parents are right and the girls are wrong. _And do not_ try to sit there and tell me that whenever the girls are having problems with their parents, you don't take sides, because you know perfectly well that you do. Whenever your girls are having problems with their parents, _I have never once_ seen you side with your girls. You always sympathize and empathize far more with their parents in times like that than you do with them. If I may ask, why do you suppose that is?"

Edna closed her eyes for a long moment and let out another sigh, and then she said, "I suppose that's another elephant, in a way. I know I tend to be like that. I know that there have been times in the past when I could _and should_ have empathized a lot more with my girls than I did whenever they've had problems with their parents. I know I really do tend to take their parents' side over theirs in times like that, and I'm beginning to see it now how wrong that is. I guess it's just easier for me to empathize with their parents because _I'm_ a parent, and like their parents, I, too, have made mistakes in the past with my own children. It's a very unpleasant issue for me that I don't like to face or deal with. I don't like to think about all the times and all the ways I've gotten it wrong when I was raising my two boys. I guess I feel that I don't have any right to judge another parent when my own parenting has been less than perfect. That's probably another reason why I always used to shut the girls down with the lame excuse that their parents only sent them away to Eastland to give them a good education whenever they expressed hurt and anger about it. _I never_ agreed with their parents' decision to ship them away to Eastland and let Eastland – _and me_ – raise their daughters for them, Howard. _I never_ agreed with their parents choosing to not be involved in the girls' everyday lives. But at the same time, I didn't want to be judgmental about it because like I said, I've also made my share of mistakes as a parent."

"Yeah, I think I can understand that."

"But still, I know there are changes _I do_ need to make when it comes to my girls. You're right. In the past, whenever there's been a problem between one of my girls and her parents, I really _have_ seemed to automatically take the attitude that the parents are right and she's wrong, and that _is_ pretty unfair of me. I know that in times like that, I need to remember to try to understand my girls' perspectives and I need to try to empathize with my girls a lot more than I have. And I know I probably do need to start being a lot more honest with them about all our elephants in the room."

"Yeah, being honest about all the elephants is a pretty good idea. I think it would be a very good and very healthy thing for your girls _and for you_ if you all just came right out and admitted the truth, that their parents aren't doing them right and that you love those girls as if they were your own daughters. Heck, if it was up to me, I'd adopt all of them myself."

"You'd have to fight me for them," Edna said with a smile, and Howard laughed.

"Yeah, I would have to do that, wouldn't I?"

"Of course," Edna told him, and again, he laughed.

"We have a great life together at Eastland with the girls, don't we?"

Edna smiled once more and responded, "I'd certainly say so."

A moment later, a waiter brought their food out to them and they started eating.

Meanwhile, back at Eastland, Jo was having a sort of "date" of her own with Carl, only he hadn't taken her out to eat that night like Howard had with Mrs. G. because she was feeling even more under the weather than usual. Since Jo really hadn't been up to going out that night, Carl stayed with her and simply spent the evening sitting on the coffee table in front of her and talking with her while she was lying down on the couch in the lounge.

"It's really sweet of you to hang out with me like this, Carl. You know you don't have to just hang around here to keep me company, though. It _is_ a Saturday night. I don't mind if you want to go out and do something a little more fun."

"Are you kidding? Hanging out with you is always loads of fun. It'd be way too lonely for me if I went out and did something solo."

The moment Carl told her that, it hurt Jo to realize that she was not only his girlfriend; she was also his only _friend_ , period, and all because of something as stupid as acne. Jo knew that other kids really could be stupid, immature, shallow creeps at times, but she _also_ knew that in the end, it was their loss because Carl was such a great guy.

"Well then, since you'll be hanging out around here with me this evening, what would you like to do? We could play a board game, or cards, or we could watch a little television."

Carl shook his head then and put his hand on top of Jo's and said, "Jo, stop. You don't have to entertain me. That's not why I'm here. I'm here for _you_ , okay? I know you're not feeling well tonight. Is there anything I can to do to make you more comfortable? Would you like another pillow behind you, or a blanket or anything?"

Jo laughed a little bit at his sweetness and squeezed his hand and responded, "Carl, I'm fine. I mean, I may not be feeling all that great tonight, but still, you don't have to wait on me."

"I know you like to be independent, and I don't blame you. I like to be independent, too. All my life, I never really fit in with anybody else in school or had any real friends before you came along, so I had to learn how to get along on my own. I know better than anybody how important it is to be able to be independent in this world because other people are so fickle. I know you can't always count on others. As a matter of fact, your brave, strong, independent spirit is one of the things I've always admired most about you."

"Thank you, Carl. I appreciate that."

"It's just the truth. However, there are _also_ times in life when a situation comes along that's too big for a person to be able to handle on their own; when they really _have_ to be willing to accept help from the people who love them, even if they don't want to."

"What are you talking about?"

"Jo, we've been seeing each other for over a month now, and we've been friends for much longer than that. I think it's time we discussed the elephant in the room that we never talk about."

"What elephant would that be?"

"I may as well come right out say it. Jo, we all know that you need a transplant if you're ever going to really get your life back again. And a while back, I accidentally overheard Mrs. Garrett and Howard talking about the possibility of her donating one of her kidneys to you. I overheard Mrs. Garrett say that you didn't want to go through with it. I'm just going to tell you point blank that I think you should reconsider. I know how independent you always like to be, and I know it can be really hard for you sometimes to accept help from others, but like it or not, there are times in life when you have to."

Jo sighed and told him, "Carl, this has nothing to do with my wanting to stay independent. I just don't want Mrs. G. making a sacrifice like that, and I don't want to take any chances. If I were to say yes to the transplant and something went wrong for her during the surgery, or if something happened later on in her life and she really needed her other kidney that she gave to me, I'd never be able to live with that."

"I really don't think you've got anything to worry about in that department. Mrs. Garrett's as strong as a horse, and she's healthier than a lot of people half her age."

"Yeah, that is true, but still, something bad could happen. Something could go wrong."

"I know there are risks involved, but personally, I think it's worth it if it'll help you get your health back. Jo, you're so weak and tired all the time now that you hardly even feel like riding your bike anymore. You can't go on like this. And besides, the risks are minimal. People donate kidneys all the time. I'm telling you, Mrs. Garrett will be just fine."

"But what if she's not? What if…?" Jo started to ask, but then she allowed the sentence to trail.

In that next instant, Carl sensed what Jo was about to say next. "What if something went wrong for Mrs. Garrett and she ended up resenting you for it afterwards, the way Rose resented you for it every time she ever had to put your needs before her own? Is that what you were going to say?"

Jo let out a long sigh, and finally, she answered, "Yeah."

"Jo, I don't think you're being fair to Mrs. Garrett. Give the woman _a little_ credit. Mrs. Garrett's been a mother to you since long before the adoption, and deep down, you know that. She's the one who's loved you and looked out for you ever since you first set foot on the Eastland campus. She's shown you more true compassion and tenderness than you ever got from Rose, and she _has_ made sacrifices for you before, you know. _She's_ the one who gave up all her privacy so that you and the girls could move in across the hall from her in order for her to keep her eye on you guys. _She's_ the one who accepted full responsibility for all of you in addition to all her other responsibilities as school dietician, and let's be honest. When she did that, she took on _a lot_ of extra work – that she's _never_ gotten any extra money for. But even though she did make some sacrifices and really, _really_ inconvenienced herself for your sakes, has she ever _once_ taken the attitude with you or with any of the girls that she resented you for it? In all the time that you've known her, has she ever _once_ thrown any of it up in your face or made you feel guilty about it?"

After a long, silent moment, Jo finally shook her head and said, "No. No, she hasn't."

"Not even _once?_ "

"Not even once."

"Doesn't that tell you anything? Look Jo, I know how worried you are about all the risks involved. I know the thought of something going wrong for Mrs. Garrett on the operating table really scares you. Like I said before, I'm certain that Mrs. Garrett would be fine. She's one of the strongest, healthiest people I've ever met. However, if you didn't want to go through with it because you didn't want to take the risk of something going wrong for her, or for you, on the operating table, I could understand that. But please, _please_ don't say no to the operation because you're afraid Mrs. Garrett might resent you for it afterwards for some reason, because Jo, I'm telling you, you have _nothing_ to worry about where that's concerned. Mrs. Garrett is _not_ that type of person. She is _not_ Rose, and she never could be. You know that."

After another silent moment, Jo admitted, "Yeah, you're right. I do know that. Well Carl, you've certainly given me a lot to think about."

Carl smiled and said, "People who are close to each other have a way of doing that to one another sometimes."

"Yeah, they do. But if it's all the same to you, I really don't feel like talking about this anymore. Can we just watch TV or something? I want to get my mind off my problems for a little while."

"Of course. I'll go get the portable TV set and bring it in here. I'm sure we can find a good movie on tonight."

"Thanks."

"Don't mention it," Carl said, and after he stood up, he bent over and gave Jo a quick kiss on the top of her head before he left to get the TV set.

A week later, shortly after the first of May, Jo knocked on Mrs. Garrett's bedroom door.

"Come in," her voice called. She was sitting at her desk, and when Jo walked in, she turned around in her chair to see who it was. "Oh, hello, Jo," she said with a smile.

"Hi, Mrs. G. How are you doing?"

"I'm alright. How are you today?"

"I'm a little nervous…because I've made a big decision."

"Oh? What big decision is that?"

"I had a long talk with Carl last week, and he made me think really hard about some things. All week long, I just haven't been able to get our conversation out of my mind."

Mrs. Garrett got up from her seat in that moment and faced Jo and asked, "What sort of things did he make you think about?"

"The transplant. He helped me realize, Mrs. G., that I really wasn't being fair to you. I wasn't giving you enough credit. You've always done so much for me and the girls. You've made a lot of sacrifices for us, and you've had _plenty_ of opportunities to hold it over our heads and lay guilt trips on us about it, but after all this time, you've never _once_ done anything like that. You've never _once_ resented us for it any time you ever had to inconvenience yourself for us in any way. That's not who you are."

"No, it isn't."

"You've never once acted like Rose, and that's because you _aren't_ Rose. I mean, I always knew that in my head, but after all this time, my heart's finally catching on. And I know that you'd never resent even something as big as giving up one of your kidneys for me. The thought of something going wrong for you on the operating table, and the thought of something going wrong with your one remaining kidney later on in your life and you needing the one you gave away to me, still scares me. I won't lie. But I also know that many people in this world give up a kidney all the time and go on to be just fine, and on top of that, I know how healthy and strong you are. I know that if anybody in the world could handle something like this, it would be you."

"That's true," Mrs. Garrett said as her face lit up like a Christmas tree, because she _knew_ what Jo was about to say next.

"So, if you still want to go through with it, Mrs. Garrett, then so do I. Even though I'm still nervous about the whole thing, if you're still on board, then I'll agree to the transplant."

Mrs. Garrett then let out a cry of joy and threw her arms around Jo.


End file.
